News

This is just a quick bit of news that won't affect anyone who is currently in either the Capoferro or Dall'Agocchie study groups, but it is important all the same. Until further notice, both study groups are invitation only: no maybes, no popping in and out, CLOSED. The reason for this is twofold: 1) I'd rather have a dozen really good and dedicated fencers than twenty average ones, and 2) I personally need to continue to enjoy what I'm doing, otherwise I get burned out and lose interest. My ultimate goal is to have a solid programme in both traditions running smoothly when I leave at the end of next year, which can only be accomplished if I focus on those who have already dedicated themselves to this.

Otherwise, nothing has changed: the schedule remains as it was before this announcement.

First Sunday Class

After a number of schedule changes over the past few months, we've finally settled on Sunday afternoons for the Italian rapier class. All in all, I think it went very well, and I hope in the coming weeks we can make it even more efficient, which will allow us to accomplish more in less time. Specifically, once everyone learns the basic drills (which I described in the previous post), we can save lots of time by moving from one to the other immediately.

Everyone did remarkably well today, and aside from a few scrapes and bruises, we all made it out alive. I already mentioned a few issues that came up today after class, but it would be useful to repeat some of them here, as everyone was doing one or more of these at some point during class.

1. Overextending on the lunge: this can manifest itself as rolling onto the left ankle (which will ultimately lead to the destruction of that ankle), coming up onto the ball of the left foot (which hides your true measure), or sliding the rear foot as you attack (which also gives you a false sense of measure).

2. "The sinking lunge": this is related to the first one, but with a different physical manifestation. While it may seem like a good idea to lunge low to gain more distance, you are committing two major errors: a) your vita is not moving in a straight line, so it is not the most efficient movement, and b) you are abandoning any leverage advantage you might have had; in other words, you are giving your debole to your opponent.

3. Circling: Capoferro strongly discourages the practice (see "On those who circle", in the second part of his book), as it is not particularly useful for someone standing the Italian guard, nor does it allow for most of the defenses that we practice.

4. Over-reliance on cutting: while I am entirely guilty of cutting on a regular basis, the rapier is optimized for thrusting, with cuts coming in only if the point is no longer of any use.

We'll work on some of these issues tomorrow during drill time.

Italian rapier drills

This post will primarily be of interest for those who come to the drills only session on Monday nights, but is useful for anyone who comes to rapier class, either at FAC or at UofT. I've been thinking of ways to make our training more efficient for two reasons: 1) I don't have any time to waste (and this is quite literal), and 2) If we already know the drills and are familiar with them, we can skip the often-long demonstrations of each drill, which means more fencing time. As we gain more experience and become level 2 or 3 fencers (with a +1 bonus to attack and defend), we can modify/upgrade or even replace some of the drills listed below; but as of now, here they are:

1) Thrusting: 15 thrusts at misura stretta, 12 lunges at misura larga, and 10 passate at misura larghissima.

2) Footwork: leader/follower drill with frequent role changes.

3) Tessitura*: 20 continuous attacks against a cooperative partner in various hand positions and various ranges.

4) Basic approaching drills, aka "The Spiral drill": beginning from out of measure, approach and strike the opponent using cavazione only, opposition only, and a combination of the two.

5) Cavazione di tempo drill: during the agent's step to misura larga, the patient will perform a cavazione and lunge, striking the agent before his foot lands.

6) The rock defense drills, aka "The counter-Spiral drill": if the agent attacks with a cavazione, counter with an opposition; if the agent attacks with an opposition, counter with a cavazione (with or without a piegatura di vita); alternatively, counter with a scanso della vita on either side.

7) False attack drill: knowing that the patient will defend, the agent will do a false attack to draw out the defense, and follow on with an appropriate second attack (under the sword, transport, cut, etc.)

8) Attacker/defender: application of all the previous drills in a restricted game.

*Literally, this term means "weaving", which resembles the interplay between the swords. I can't explain it in words, so I'll get some video on Sunday and put it up.

Back to the drawing board

We're well into the New Year, and nary a post from me to be seen. But no longer! I'm back into the groove, and the number of sessions I'm running per week at AEMMA (and at UofT again) has doubled since last year. I've been working on a lot of new drills for our Dall'Agocchie study group; our seminar with Jared Kirby has given us plenty of rapier drills to master, and sword and dagger is not too far off in the horizon...in short, there is plenty to look forward to.

As for this blog, it's become quite clear that rather than posting up long sections of text, it would be much more useful to regularly post shorter descriptions of the class with photos and video from each session. Considering how difficult it is to interpret the systems from the written version in the first place, it only seems to add more confusion when I paraphrase the masters' words here. So instead, I'll be making much better use of visual content in the coming weeks.

For those of you who haven't been around recently, here are some of the events that are going on right now, or in the very near future:

Classes

1. Monday 18h00-19h00: rapier drills
2. Wednesday 21h00-23h00: Dall'Agocchie study group
3. Thursday 16h30-18h00: rapier class @UofT
4. Sunday 13h00-15h00: rapier class

Events and seminars

1. Starting 22 January (this Saturday), I'll be teaching an introductory course in Italian rapier at FAC through the ROM, from 14h00-15h30.
2. On 30 January (next Sunday), FAC will be having its annual open house, where all the schools that make up the Collective show off their stuff to the public. Everyone is welcome! 14h00-16h00.
3. On the first or second weekend of May (to be confirmed), we will be hosting Maestro Ramon Martinez for another Destreza seminar. More details to follow in the coming weeks.

Back on track!

Now that my free scholler challenge is over and done with, I can get back to posting here regularly. The 31st of October marked the return of Capoferro to the curriculum, as I gave a four hour introduction to Italian rapier to a group of six students. We covered an enormous amount of material in that time, and I think that I can make some serious progress with this group. This time around, I really want to emphasize that we are fighting with rapiers, and not rapier fencing. I think this requires a bit of explanation...

I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last two years about the rapier, and I strongly believe that the sum of the Art is not to be contained within the works of Capoferro, Fabris, Giganti, etc. Rather, these masters described a number of basic actions or plays that are the building blocks of fighting with a rapier, but not the sum. It's not as if the day Fabris published his treatise on fencing everyone forgot how to cut, grapple or fight "dirty", so to speak. My goal, then, is to train everyone to exploit the strengths of the weapon, and make use of everything we learn from Fiore's texts when things are less than ideal, i.e. when the tip and edge are no longer of use.

As for the Dall'Agocchie study group, we are still working hard on Wednesday nights. Over the course of the past few months, we've really made some serious progress in simplifying the system, so much so that a curriculum is not far off in the future. We've worked out all of the defenses, the provocations and their counters, as well as the stretto plays and their counters. All that remains is the paired form, and then the entire first section of his treatise is complete. This next Sunday, I'll be doing an introduction/recap of the system from 1-5, during which we'll be going over everything. With any luck, we can then bring in some new blood to the study group, and have multiple mini-groups working.

Finally, my plan for the new year is to start working on the sword and dagger section from Dall'Agocchie. As it stands, there are three of us who can really work through this right now, and I plan on doing the same thing I had done with single sword: breakdown and perform every defense, learn the provocations and their counters, and go through the paired form. That should take a few months, and then we'll move on to sword and cloak, and then two swords. Things should prove to be exciting in the next couple months. I'll be posting notes from both study groups on Thursdays and Saturdays.

Updates! There must be updates!

The events of the last six weeks have really kept me away from posting any new material in a while; preparing for the start of a new school term, going to ISMAC, and teaching a "graduate" course have all taken their toll, but I feel like I've got everything under wraps. I don't want to write too much here today, because I'll have a lot more to say on Sunday; we've done some very interesting (and productive!) drills in class, and they are paying off in a big way.

For those of you not in the know, as of the 31st of October, I am reinstating the Italian rapier programme at FAC, which will have been on hiatus for just over four months. The reasons for putting it on the shelf are numerous, and the reasons for bringing it back are just as many, so I won't delve into the details. The two main reasons I'm bringing it back are:

1. There is no better way to learn how to thrust properly. It also teaches the student how to maximize his or her efficiency.

2. The notions of gaining and constraining are very explicit, which facilitates a quicker (in my opinion) understanding of fencing theory, and how it can be played with.

I'd love to do more than one class per week, but the fact of the matter is that I'm a full-time PhD student, and I want to finish on time. I'll try to run longer classes on a regular basis, but that's all I can do about that.

Secondly, if rapier is coming back on, that means that something is going away: the Dall'Agocchie study group will only run on Wednesday evenings from 9h00-11h00 (ish). Participation is still by invitation only, as the group assumes a considerable familiarity with the sword in one hand. After three months (maybe longer?) of hard work, I'll finally be ready to bring in a new group of students starting October 17th, when I will be giving a short seminar on Dall'Agocchie's system. If you're new and you want to come out to the study group, this seminar is MANDATORY, no exceptions. More details to follow in the next week or so.

Rapier training for the next month

Another month, another focus. I've been playing around with a few different ideas in class recently, and I've been very pleased with the results they have been bringing. As I promised at the end of 2009, we're going to be spending a fair amount of time working with feints and the plates of Capoferro during the next two months, after which we'll have a general exam at the beginning of April before Maestro Martinez's seminar on Destreza towards the end of the month. (To which I strongly recommend everyone goes...).

In terms of new drills, there's little new technical material to introduce - we've really covered every useful thing to be done with the unaccompanied sword - so we're moving on to some more tactical-based drills. Specifically, I wanted to examine three scenarios: 1) the patient steps in with the initial guadagnare and thus becomes the agent; 2) the appropriate use of the passing lunge; 3) deviating from the linea retta, i.e. looking at the plates.

Finally, much more fencing. I continue to enjoy the agent/patient drills we've been working on, and now I'd like to move into some more "extreme" scenarios: endurance, having already been struck, Highlander. Let's see how it all works out on Wednesday night!

UofT class update!

Yes! After several weeks of uncertainty, we finally have confirmation that rooms are booked for next week! I have yet to confirm with the person in charge of bookings which room(s) is booked, because it will change every week due to a host of other events going on throughout the St. Mike's campus.

As for content, a few things will change in the way I present the material since Jared Kirby's workshop. As of next week, I'll be starting from scratch with the new students, and really work the new things that I've learned. Specifically, I want to play around with the refined notions of guadagnare and stringere, and how to enter the fight safely. The idea of creating an opening as a way to get into measure is an interesting one; let's just see what non-fencers do about it.

Class info: Wednesday night's class

After a very productive JKD lesson today, I got inspired for tomorrow night's class material. I've been playing around a lot recently with the True Fight, going back and forth, gaining and maintaining the line, and so on; now I want to put everything thing together into one long chase scene.

We'll spend the first part of the class going over the basic (footwork, guard, targeting), and then review the basics of the true fight (trovare di spada, stringere e guadagnare), and then go back and forth from there: I have the line, now you have the line, etc., until someone decidedly "wins" the drill.

And in other news, blue cords will start looking at sidesword in the next couple of weeks. I have two coming in, and I am excited. : )

Videos

Something I've always wanted to do - dating from my days back at Duello - is posting videos of various techniques, plays, fencing situations from the masters we study: Capoferro, Dall'Agocchie, Swetnam, Marozzo, as well as Fiore (why not?). I've gotten really frustrated with just seeing pictures with a description (or not) of a particular technique or principle, because it's taking a very dynamic situation and twisting, warping it into a static one. I want to see things in context, so that's what I'm setting out to do.

The absolute first thing I'll be posting will be from Dall'Agocchie's treatise, on what he calls stepping in the guards. It's an incredible simple form designed to get the new student used to the stepping patterns used in the Bolognese system, but it also contains a number of important sword actions which are seen again and again throughout his text: the dritto and riverso ribbon cuts, the tramazzone, and the riverso ridoppio-imbroccata combo. I've been working with his treatise for so long (a year and a half now), and I feel the urge to produce something from my experiences.

I also plan to take some short videos from class, which will focus either on a particular drill, a concept, or a moment in time, otherwise known as a play. I'll start with some really simple stuff (striking as my opponent enters misura larga, cavazione to regain the line, the counter-stepping drill), before moving on to some complex exchanges.

Now I just need some volunteers, and possibly someone with a nice camera...

Update on class at UofT

The rapier class to be offered at UofT as of next Thursday will be held from 4-6 in Madden Hall (on the first floor of Carr Hall) on the St. Michael's campus. (This time may change slightly; more info as the week goes on!)

My goal for the class on campus is to reach out to the student population at UofT, bringing in some new bodies, which is good for everyone in the long run; the more people we have learning, the more we all have a chance to fence with "many diverse players." Due to the initial equipment dilemma, I'll have to limit numbers to twelve students maximum, and we won't be doing any "fencing" until after the foundations of the Art have been understood to a satisfactory degree. Students will be expected to purchase their own equipment by the end of the eighth class, which includes specifically a mask and a rapier.

Material to cover during the eight weeks:

1: the essentials of posture, movement, the four guard positions, and the lunge.
2: an introduction to measure and angulation of the sword and body.
3: introduction to the concepts of trovare di spada, stringere, and guadagnare.
4: introduction to the various meanings of tempo.
5: the true fight.
6: expanding on the true fight, incorporating cuts, offhand use.
7: introduction to the deceptive fight, i.e. the basic feints.
8: tying it all together, the test.

I'm really looking forward to branching out; this should be good.

Class outline

For the first time...ever, I'll be dividing the class into two parts: the more advanced students will pick up a dagger, and the less advanced will continue working on refining the elements of the true fight, as well as incorporating the feints we've been working with over the past few weeks. The schedule will look something like this:

9h00-9h30: warm-up, basic footwork and targeting drills. (All students) Short break.
9h30-10h00: intro to dagger (blue) and both fights (green). Short break.
10h00-10h15: slow work.
10h15-end: attacker/defender scenarios: free, back against the wall, having been hit. (Hope to have time for all three)

Things might change slightly depending on how many people show up, but we shall see...

So far, we have six students (including myself) signed up for Jared's seminar. Keep the names coming!

Class times

I currently teach two times a week at FAC (927 Dupont St.), with the strong possibility of a third class to be offered Thursday afternoon/early evening at UofT (St. Mike's College).

Wednesday: 21h00-23h00
Thursday: 16h00-18h00 (tentatively)
Saturday: 11h00-13h00

In addition, every two weeks we host a free fencing session at FAC from 12h00-14h00 on Saturdays, to which everyone is welcome.