Training Log from Budapest - II.

This is the state of affairs now at Kard Rendje, Hungary, just before Summer 🙂

We started this period with a discussion to assess the experience of the first two months, and choose our next steps from a few possible routes. Based on observations during competitions we concluded that the highlights of the next few weeks would be distance management and the conscious reconsideration of the use and preparation of counterattacks. The tactical exercises in the past one and a half months then revolved around these concepts.

By now, footwork exercises and basic technical coordination exercises have become regular elements of the warm-up sessions of the club. We have introduced new elements as well, which assist in our goal to re-train the sense of fencing distance used in various combat situations. As we became more proficient in performing the basic conditioning tasks, we had the possibility to start a series of competitions as part of our training. These bouts give opportunity to try and learn the tactical elements, as well as to learn how to analyze one's own actions, or referee each other's bouts. This idea serves a twofold purpose; first, fencers get instant feedback through the judgments and the coaching instructions they receive from observing instructors (including myself), second, our fencers are getting used to bout management and the challenges of analysis as an organic part of learning fencing. We also document the results for and rankings on fencing pool-sheets for later assessment. These little in-house competitions are open to wandering HEMAists who happen to have their competitive gear with them 😉 As we work, week-to week, new people express interest in our sessions, so we have to adapt to changes in experience level and equipment deficiencies from time to time. As much as this is less than ideal, it is also a positive feedback and a possibility to work with the upcoming 'generation' of the club's fencers. In bouts we use the pool format, which allows us to adapt to the actual participants' needs - sometimes we create a group of steel weapons with full equipment, and one with simulator tools and light equipment. However, we keep encouraging participants to obtain the full competitive equipment if possible. Many of the instructions I gave the past weeks during the competitive bouts served to make the fencers conscious of their fencing distance, and to help discern a few sets of conditions that allow for specific actions while forbidding others, relating to knowledge they gained in previous exercises - this often brought immediate improvement in the success rate of otherwise well thought out tactics. For the new material, we have decided to work on exercises involving engagements and their weapon specific possibilities. Since working with blade-contact seems central to several different kinds of situations in longsword fencing, we have to have a clear understanding of what elements belong to our actual purpose. There is another aspect of learning these new exercises and incorporating them in the group's regular training habits: the fencers need a practical insight in the area of coaching technique and act the coach' part toward each other. This does not replace individual lessons, but is an efficient solution for our situation, and quite sufficient while working on the basics. It could be a separate study to follow the improvement from this point of view, especially in case of beginners who attend our sessions. To set up the foundations for a structured work, we have learned a set of educational exercises, which our fencers are becoming familiar with by now. The next steps have been to use different blade relations and maneuvers to create safe opportunities of attacking. Later we are going to be able to use these elements in second intention actions as well, which I am looking forward to with curiosity. While we to set up the weapon-specific method of learning attacks on the blade and some connected topics, the new goals are forming too. The next topic we are going to work on are actions that might serve as feints (create openings that can be taken advantage of), with longswords. This is an area where I have several questions and hypotheses, but I am curious to see our results. Function is primary, our goal is to see how this aspect of fencing theory relates to existing longsword actions. The future Training Log entries will deliver the news as we progress, follow us, talk to us, visit us, to learn more!

~ K