Monday 26 April 2010

Rapier and the IDC

Ok folks, the votes are in and the overwhelming preference is for the earlier cut & thrust style fencing (88.9%). So for now that is the direction that we will head, and as most of you are willing to do research that will make this a real collaborative venture. In that vein I will be contacting those willing to lead this venture and work out the specifics as to who is in charge.

Weapon simulators: synthetics (1st choice), shinai (2nd choice), wood (3rd choice)…also the preference for a low cost choice seems to be popular (£10 to £50 range). Well then, I have good news on this front then. In the short term at least our single-handed shinai should suffice for this (I know other groups use them for “cut & thrust”). Polypropylene rapiers should be possible to build and help keep the cost down.

Links to source materials:
• http://www.salvatorfabris.com/BologneseIntroduction.pdf
• http://www.marozzo.com/blog/category/bolognese/: http://www.marozzo.com/guide.html
• http://www.achillemarozzo.it/
• http://www.marozzo.org/
• http://www.chicagoswordplayguild.com/c/theTradition/BologneseSwordsmanship.asp
• http://www.salvatorfabris.com/SectionBolognese.shtml
• http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=19&sid=fba9dd5a1e79a0c449dcee44d617f4b8 (16th century treatises)
• http://boxwrestlefence.com/2010/03/art-of-marozzo-intro/
• http://www.thearma.org/essays/Marozzo1.htm
• http://www.historicalfencing.org/
• http://www.hroarr.com/manuscripts_italian.html
• http://www.cutandthrust.org/manuals/marozzo-sca.pdf
• http://www.cutandthrust.org/manuals/silver/paradoxes/
• http://www.cutandthrust.org/manuals/agocchie.pdf

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Protection for sparring and some notes.

As many of you are aware we will soon be using some nylon weapons, alongside shinai, for some of our drilling and sparring. They should be a lot closer to real swords in terms of balance, shape and how they behave in contact and should really up the level of our training. In general our attitude towards protective gear has been very relaxed and we've been trusting everyone to take responsibility for their own safety but if people wish to spar full speed with the new weapons a certain minimum level of equipment will be necessary-

Mask (Preferably with back of the head protection)
Throat protection (Preferably a rigid material backed by padding)
Well-padded gloves such as lacrosse gloves
Forearm guards
Some form of protection for the body, specifically collar-bones, ribs, sternum

A certain measure of control will also need to be demonstrated as the weapons will hit A LOT harder than shinai. This doesn't mean you need to own all of this kit- a lot of it will be available to borrow within the club. Shinai will definitely still be in use so no problem if you don't have access to all the equipment or don't feel comfortable sparring with the nylon weapons. We'd also like to take this opportunity to encourage people to use throat protection whenever they spar with shinai as fencing mask bibs alone aren't really enough to stop a solid thrust.

Cheers
Jon + Johann


Other notes

Awards to be given out in the near future: Cat and Jon, a purple ribbon each.

The Battle of Dawlish Warren is on for this Saturday (24/4/10)

Lastly, there has been some interest in adding rapier to our repertoire. To do this we are going to do two things:
1) We will need to decide whether our focus will be the earlier “spada de lato” style of the Bolognese school, or the later rapier style of say Salvator Fabris.

2) I would need one or more folks to take the lead on this.

So, if you have any interest in which form we ought to study and/or you would like to take up this challenge…let me know.

On a related note our insurers have an allergic reaction to metal blades in training apparently, and so we will need to develop a suitable rapier/spada de lato simulator…I have ideas in the works currently, but I’m always open to more ideas.