There’s nothing that energizes me so much as the moment of epiphany, of rediscovering some shred of lost knowledge or some new pedagogical tool that can aid in the completeness or quickness of our reconstruction. This is rare. Most of my progression involves learning that I’ve been doing something wrong – possibly for years, possibly […]
Archive for June 2014
Practice Log, 6/23 7 comments
Destroying a Line 2 comments
Fencers do not form lines on a mere whim. The line formation, as I’ve said before, derives great strength from its easily maintained cohesion. These strengths do not exist on the line’s flanks, which is why we usually direct our attacks there, and why we usually put our strongest fencers on our flanks. However, it […]
Second Giganti VII: Voids Leave a comment
Whoever wishes to be accomplished in this profession needs to understand not only how to move well, parry correctly, and control the sword. He must also understand how to evade thrusts with his body. Giganti illustrates and explains four voids against thrusts in the Second Book (though he only calls two of them voids) and […]
Practice Log, 6/17 15 comments
Let’s get to it … Thursday We’ve recently introduced our students to the concepts of measure, tempo, and line. Naturally they’ve already had some exposure through osmosis. Thursday’s drill was based on the idea that we can only safely attack an opponent who has given us a tempo. So: to start, agente finds, patiente performs […]
So It’s Your First Melee…. 11 comments
So, you’re about to head to your first melee event. Or third, or tenth, or whatever. Chances are that if you’re reading about how to be better at melee, then you’re probably not someone who would be considered a veteran of many wars. That’s fine: we all start there. You can’t have 20 years of […]
Weekly Warfare – 4 – Explosive Strength Leave a comment
Ed. This week Iskender (with an assist from Abbe Faria) discusses how to improve the speed of your actions and reactions. What Abbe Faria discusses here refers not just to speed, which can be described for swordplay as velocity of movement, but explosive strength. This refers to the acceleration of body mass. Not just how […]
Practice Log, 6/9 16 comments
After a month of demos, meetings, and events eating up my Sundays, Elvegast practice resumed yesterday. As usual, most of my time was dedicated to teaching. This is fine; I’m learning enough on my own time. What’s Good Enough? First, a question for all the other longtime teachers out there: at what point do you […]
Second Giganti VI: Defense against Passing Lunges Leave a comment
Giganti devotes two sets of plates to what he describes as “furious passes” but which seem more likely to be the combination of a passing step that flows into a lunge (the passing lunge or pass-lunge) that shows up on the SCA list so very often. The big advantage to the passing lunge, and why […]
Well-Coached vs. Well-Learned Leave a comment
This is a distinction that I find myself coming back to a lot lately, and I think that there’s a meaningful distinction between the two concepts. This is ultimately a matter of skill progression, but I think that there is some nuance worth delving into here. A well-coached person is one who can perform specific […]