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.