Well...not too bad last night, although I did (or allowed to happen) a few things I regret.
You see I had a plan...and I got side tracked. Bother.
Still, Odin did a great job on the fly...although I shouldn't have asked him to do that without more warning.
All of this being predicated on the arrival of "new folks"...I like them. Their just so damn eager...but I shouldn't allow them to distract my focus.
Next time the new folks are all yours, if you are ok with that Odin.
A few other points to come later...
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Rants and wibbles by a passive aggressive HEMAist.
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ReplyDeleteI'm glad the lesson was OK. I think that we should decide where to go from here though. We could do wrestling at the sword/Giocco Stretto stuff, although perhaps that wouldn't be the best option for including new people with the main group, or we could incorporate them in and do a few classes/drills on the very basics and winding. An example might be:
Person A cuts in with a fendente. Person B gets killed.
Person A cuts in with a fendente. Person B couters with a fendente of their own. Whoever has the centre-line thrusts for the kill.
That'd get people thinking about entering in from distance and making a committed attack, and then about following up that attack by winning the bind, rather than coming off the bind and leaving themselves open.
You could then start introducing more windy stuff, if people want to go into that. I guess you'd have to make sure that things didn't go too fast for new people though:
Person A makes a fendente. Person B counters with a fendente. Whoever has the centre-line goes for a thrust. Whoever lost the centre-line displaces it into Finestre/Ochs or Pflug/Posta Breve.
It's the basic displacement that everyone should be able to do. When people are comfortable with it, it could then be used to introduce other things, like:
Person A thrusts from the bind. Person B displaces by dropping into Breve/Pflug.
If Person B gets their point online, Person A should be dead. If Person B's point is offline, then Person A has a bunch of options - come off the bind and attack the other side (Volta/Abnehmen), attack over the counter with a mutieren/duplieren, pull their sword back for a thrust underneath (zucken) etc.
Some of them are more conceptually difficult then others - we've done the volta a lot before, but never really the mutieren/duplieren, and there's plenty of material there, so it could easily be spread over a couple of lessons.
Giocco Stretto stuff might be a bit more complicated to structure. I mean, I have a bunch of plays in my head, but I'm unsure of the right circumstances for trying each of them (erm, hip throws if the swords go high and both people are aggressive, elbow-pushes if the other person stays further out etc). As I said before, it's also not where I'd ideally throw in a new person.
At some point in the future, it might also be worthwhile doing a quick class on German guards/meisterhau-s, so people know what they are and how to recognize them (and possibly incorporate them), certainly before FightCamp. But now's not really the time.
Just running through ideas in my head here really. If you want to take the main group next time, I'm cool with that. What did you run through with Will on Monday? Would it be worthwhile just doing the first section from the winding drill thing earlier? Or run them through a 'taster' of different longsword techniques? (ie. volta, punta, half-swording from the bind, pommel bash etc.)
Cheers for the good words!
Sorry for the late response...Will got a "taster" of various longsword techniques. I think he could, with support, get thrown in the deepish end of the pool.
ReplyDeleteYou sound as though you have good ideas for where to go with this stuff. If you want, you have my sanction/blessing to take up the lessons.