Académie de l’Éclair and other tales of FightCamp.

First of all congratulations to Tim Fuke on winning rapier gold. Our first scholar and a fine teacher in his own right, Tim is always notable for understating his considerable skill. Great to see him take this well deserved win.
   *In case that isn't enough, Tim then went on to win silver in the longsword and bronze in the mixed. Please apply all the above compliments again:). Congratulations also to Ties Kool for taking gold in that event. Tim, we are proud of you.




 I ran a dagger and a dussack workshop, both of which Iam happy to say, went down very well. I wanted to say thanks to everyone that attended, I often have issues with folk not cooperating and trying to win the drills at the cost of not understanding the technique. I went to FightCamp fully expecting this to be the case again. I was however hugely impressed with everyone in both of the classes. A huge degree of co-operation, extreme effort to give a partner the right pressure and generally working to understand specifics and minutia. This allowed both classes to cover far more than I originally intended. Brilliant work, those of you who took part can be rightly proud of yourselves, thank you.

     
And finally our great tale of woe, lost hope and sadness. Or at least it could have been. Sinan (pictured here) was given a lift by two of the lovely folk from our school. Sadly mid journey his rapier left the roof of the car to become lost in the English countryside. I know that those that drove and Sinan were all secretly mortified. I had a quick chat with Marco Danelli who made the missing item, his solution "Why don't you give him the one I made for myself?" What followed was a quick dash around the students who all chipped in to cover the cost of Marco's materials and I was able to rush Sinan's new improved rapier to him on the same day. To all of my students, I am in the greatest company I could hope for.

I.33 in depth. The torture begins.

Given the heat I could have maybe gone easy on them. 
 However, yesterday was an exacting lesson.

A full break down of the connection between first ward and half shield, the nature and meaning half shield and making it work safely when many methods leave it unsound and flawed.
A demanding lesson that I think made even the heat seem noticeable.

 
 We also explored the siege in far more detail than a simple counter posture, and bring us all the way to the relationship between crutch and first ward.

 

A demanding lesson that I think made even the heat seem noticeable.  Fantastic work from the whole class.

Days of the blade.

As usual so much is going on. 

In the buckler class we have been ploughing through Lignitzer, but at last found a little more time to get back to I.33 and add a little Mair as well.

We have been playing with Mair's Opus more and more throughout our classes, it is a work I am gaining more and more respect for the more I understand it.

His wresting is delightfully well explained.

Of course our favourites are never left behind, Thibault is so elegant and hard hitting.

 Then there is of course the spear. Mair using the staff to teach in a manner needing (at least a little) less exacting control. 

Most of the classes are on waiting list. But openings do crop up, so if you want to come and have a look do contact us.

Spears at the Palace.

 

A busy week, mainly fighting, with a touch of Indian clubs. 

These shots are from the early class at Crystal Palace. This week was spearplay, and rather wonderful it was too.

 

We  are also putting out a few clips to help people who wonder what HEMA looks like.

A few of these I will post up here as I get time.

 

The first of these is a gentle run through. Please be aware that these points, although not fully sharp as perfectly capable of entering the body. So my partner's caution is fully understandable. 

What's on at the academy.

Monday in the Barbican. We are on rapier and rapier and dagger, for a few weeks working through Mair.

 
          
 Wednesday at Blackfriars. It is the wonderful Lignitzer sword and buckler.    

Thursday Crystal Palace. We have two classes, one after the other. Usually spear followed by messer and dussack, but for a few weeks the spear class is working on dagger.

             
The Thursday class is currently the only group not on waiting list.

Friday Highgate. Again working through some Mair longsword for a few weeks.              
All of the classes have their own focus but follow the same principles of reach, feeling and application/reaction to force.

If you are interested in joining a class, contact me at londonlongsword@gmail.com and please include a telephone number.

Bucklering like a boss.

Last night we split into three groups.

Club swinging:
 I picked a simple heart swing that brings that if the body is turned rather than using the military club form, allows us to practice a vertical strike moving into plunge.
A lot of benefit in this, everyone was using the size 3 club which is not too heavy but encourages you to flow through the cut.

Set piece: Each pairing picking a play or section of a play from Lignitzer and working through it, focusing on the element that they find hardest.

Solver: Free responsive drill, breaking down each play from Lignitzer into its component parts. Rather than saying I must start at point A, choosing the piece of the sequence that most matches the necessity of the situation and proceeding from there.

Each group worked for twenty minutes before rotating to the next.
Excellent work from everyone, a fantastic way to come back off holiday.

The LFHA Club Training Day with Mike Simpson and Steve Angell.

This weekend I had the pleasure of hosting an event on behalf of the LHFA (London Historical Fencing Alliance). I very deliberately chose something that wasn't a fencing event, but also offered exercises extremely pertinent to swordsmanship, the Indian Clubs. I train clubs often. I use it to teach some beginner students structure and flow within the cut, but I was glad to have a day off and hand the reins to some gentlemen with much greater experience than my own.

 Enter Mike Simpson and Steve Angell.

 

 Wearing their Aloha T-shirts: Steve on the left, Mike on the right.

We only had four hours for this first seminar so Mike went very swiftly into getting folk moving with and without clubs. Taking everyone through a twenty minute warm up that also allowed the few late runners time to slip quietly into the class at the back. I was dashing all over the place but I was enjoying hearing Mike talk about using complex sequences to switch your mind off and achieve the simple thing you thought you couldn't do. I paraphrase there, but I think this is an important truth and (I believe )one of the aims of Meyer's cutting sequences.

 

That done, a section of the class split to help Steve get his gear to the outside training area to set up the heavy clubs (Meels and Jori). From that moment we had two classes running in tandem: the lighter more dextrous club work, and the strength and structure meels.

Throughout, Mike remained tireless in his energy and enthusiasm, giving people brief moments of respite as he solo demonstrated, but keeping the movement confident and constant. I suspect if I had not suggested a break for everyone between swapping over that he could of carried on right through.

Steve's class was by necessity a little more broken up. The additional weight making endurance swinging less of an option, a perfect mix of drilling and chatter about the origins of the meels allowed people to push themselves without being broken.

Both Mike and Steve dealt with everyone in a kind and hearty manner throughout. Both exhibiting a great professional attitude to training. Both with the overbrimming passion for their subject that carries people along. I had a lot of feedback from people after the seminar, all of it positive.

 It was very much a pleasure to have them down to teach, I hope that we will do so again soon.

Mike Simpson's web page.

Steve Angell's YouTube channel.

Taking liberties.

This week we worked with Mair's second dagger play. there are some points to be aware of in our dissection of this flow. One of the things I hate in instructors of HEMA is the "clearly they wrote something wrong in the treatise" mind set. I always feel that where possible, the assumption should be that our understanding of the technique is most likely flawed.
With this mindset in mind, I (in full expectation of contradiction) suggest there are two mistakes in the play, one in the illustration,one in the text. The text states: Please note this is based upon the translation work of Kendra Brown, Rebecca Garber, Mark Millman, Jon Reynolds and Amy West hosted at http://wiktenauer.com/, so thank you to them. The text. Item: conduct yourself thus in this device with the onset.
 

Wind yourself with stabs and with thrusts doubly in at him [so] that your left leg comes in forward and [you] stab him at his right side [so] that the thumb stands by your rondel. If he thus stabs at your right side and you stand with your right foot forward, so take that away from the binding behind his rondel [so] that your thumb is [shall be] above on your pommel. Immediately step with your left foot behind his right(1) and set your left hand behind his right elbow; shove him therewith from you and stab him at his neck. If he has thus set on, so set your left foot back and grab with your left hand(2) outward over his right and stab him at his face. If he takes that away with his dagger, so grab(3)with your left hand on his right; push him therewith under himself and thrust him in his face. If he thus thrusts doubly at you, so grab with your left hand on his right arm, step with your right foot behind his right and shove him with strength from yourself. 

It is this section (1) that I feel gives the first clue that something is amiss if his left foot is forward and the dagger is in his left hand. Play as illustrated has the right elbow far behind the torso and the right leg rearward, this makes it impractical to step behind with your left unless you circle, leaving his dagger (by assumption still in the left hand)free. If however the left leg is forward with the dagger in the right hand stepping behind his left leg with the weaponised right arm pinned makes utter sense. This I feel is backed up by the movement back of the left foot and the use of the left hand to displace(2) and grab(3)
Here is the video of our take on this. I have left the mistakes and imperfections in so that you can see us working through.

Mair than the sword.

Of course, although I like swords of nearly every type, I do enjoy the other aspects of European martial arts.  One of my favourite resources is that of Paulus Hector Mair. I hope you can see the easy flow his techniques bring to the art.

Dagger days with the LLA.

With perfect timing it seems, we spent last night covering dagger and to add to the thumb toward tip vs pick debate. No, they both exist in medieval play, and most systems had manners of dealing with both.

However yesterday we dealt with pseudo Doebringer that, only uses pick. The reason that I chose to take the class through this form is that it dismisses the lack of cutting ability argument with early knife forms (again made somewhat more important by it's dating with the scheme of fencing treatises, 1389 bloody early).

The first play is your standard disarm, the left handed anti clockwise rotation against the pick grip. But then it gets interesting.

To counter this disarm the exact methodology I would expect from modern knifeplay is used, the shearing and stripping rip, or pressing cut to ruin the defending limb. We covered all the other aspects of the play as well from the attempt to get behind to the common sense don't kid your self that if you aren't doing this full tilt his won't turn you by your nose for sentry kill (don't think he isn't going to try and *&%$ you up while you try this).Obviously this meant we had to don masks and try it against a bull rushing, bowling bastard of an assault, to get the timing of the counter, just so. Also we had a brief run through of Mair's second knife play, which is...fantastic. We have one more week of the knife then back to sword and buckler.

So many things.

Already this year has got of to a cracking start. Not only have we been featured on A.F.P. but also have appeared on the Islam Channel and the BBC's Secrets of the Castle.

I really hate this outfit.

The BBC episode had me teaching two presenters how to fight with spear against spear, and although I ended up teaching them long spear form for safety's sake, I was very pleased with how it came across and how well they absorbed what I said.

General training has been wonderful, with the Monday, Wednesday and Friday classes on waiting list only, in order to make sure we don't get too crowded and so everyone gets the attention they need.

If you want to get in at the earliest opportunity contact us at londonlongsword@gmail.com. We still have some space in the Thursday spear and dussack class in Crystal Palace.