For a list of Ildhafn's upcoming regular practices and meetings, please see our Regular Activities page.
Lesson plan: Starting to increase the repertoire by adding another defence and a couple of attacks of second intent.
Warm-up: Footwork, Oberhau swapping from lines B to G.
Meyer's Flying (Fliegender) Thrust drill: Start in Low guard, narrow stance
for the lunge, lunge three times into Langort, each time recovering with the front foot only (back foot is planted for whole drill). Repeat, with lunge in first (as in
Meyer's picture).
Had a great crowd tonight as Jon brought his brother, David, along and Amy and Lorna brought along a friend of theirs, Emma.
After some footwork practice to get warmed up, we did some cutting drills.
1: Defence strokes from Oberhut to Alber, changing off between B-F line and the H-D line. Start by cutting from Oberhut to Langort with a step, then following through to Alber; gather for the next step while lifting the sword to Oberhut on the other side for the next cut. The final aim is to string these cuts together in a fluid motion with correct stepping.
It was a small gathering this week.
Lord Sebastian has recently joined us from Thamesreach and although his gear is still in transit from far off places he came long and was introduced to Meyer's rapier style.
Footwork and basic positions were covered and we ran through the basic basic attacks and defences, though high, low and medium variations of each and then went through an exercise that Eleanor and William had been reviewing the previous week.
We welcomed a new fencer, Jon, so while I went through a quick introduction to Meyer rapier, David and Nicola worked on some more sophisticated maneouvers.
Later, Nicola and I took turns playing "fencing chess" with David. The idea is to fence slowly, so it comes down to a game of: I do this, you do that, so I want to go here etc. I found it a nice way to analyse my fencing - identifying mistakes I repeatedly make - and I think it will be a useful way to intoduce new plays that I've had trouble making work at speed.
For the rapier tourney at the Royal Visit we had playing:
King Gabriel, Don William, Don Emrys, Baron Benedict, Lord Ludwig
Lesson Plan: Basics from Meyer. Attack and defence against high, middle and low line. Identifying attacks and presenting the right defence from limited options. Recovering and blade feel.
Warm-up: Footwork
Review: Attack (lunge) and defence (parry) to lower, middle and upper body.
During the training on Wednesday, Nicola and Patrick practised against each other with every combination of weapons to hand (except a Case of daggers - they ran out of time for that).
Patrick showed how bad he is with Case and that he needs to void with his back foot when parrying. He also discovered that when he gets frustrated he forgets to gather the back foot before lunging, which does nothing to ease his frustration.
More Manciolino. Working from the Leoni translation and introduction, we worked on the first five attacks and responses from Guardia di Testa.
Warm-up: Lunge practice.
Review: Guardia di Testa, di Faccia (both high guards), Porta di Ferro Stretta and Coda Lunga e Alta (both low guards). Parries can be accomplished by transitions between these guards. Cuts in this style tend to be "incomplete" or Colpo Imperfetto rather than Colpo Finito. Reviewed Mandritto, Riverso, Stramazzone.
A first look at Manciolino. Working from the Leoni translation and introduction, we tried the first four attacks and responses from Guardia di Testa.
Problem: There is little footwork specified. Instances where footwork is specified are passes, except one instruction to step with the right foot at the opponent to make sure you get close enough to strike with a cut. Inspection of the rest of the chapter shows this is the approach throughout. I note one instruction to step towards an attack.
Lesson plan: Rapier based on Meyer. Development of multi-part attack and response drills, starting well out of measure. Discussion of fencing theory.
Started with the usual footwork practice.
Exercise 1: To review lunge basics, checking if head and upper body is protected by hilt.
A steps into measure and lunges against B. B does not defend, but merely attempts to hit A over the hilt.
Perform both inside (hand in fourth), and outside (both hand in fourth and hand in second).
Lesson plan: Beginning rapier based on Meyer interspersed with discussions of fencing theory. Development of multi-part attack and response drills, starting well out of measure, should appeal to non-beginners.
Started with the usual footwork practice.
Brief review of Meyer's lunge (to the body) and parry.
Discussion of hand orientation and strength of the edge vs flat.
Incremental drill (slowly add steps to build a long sequence): A & B in Eisenport.
1. A approaches B. B lunges when A comes into measure.
2. A parries B's lunge.
Ludwig, Eleanor and Eloise took their rapier gear along with them to the St Sebastian's event on the weekend and did a bit of training. Eleanor also found the pile of fibreglass rapiers which are once again in her car to be taken along on Wednesday.
Eleanor has discovered that she likes using the hanging guard against Ludwig's oberhau but needs to tighten her defence as the resulting bruises are less then fun.
Ludwig brought along a couple of bucklers so we did a bit with them.
Eloise and Eleanor hatted up with single sword.
Fencing is picking up steam for the year, with Ludwig and Eleanor taking over more of the teaching, Caterine returning to practices, and a couple of very talented new fencers on the scene.
Unfortunately, Eleanor is too busy sorting event photos, and Ludwig is too entranced with his new fencing-manual, by Manciolino (16th C Italian, Bolognese school) to have time to update the website regularly.
There was fencing! With new people and everything! Yay!
Still Meyer rapier, of course:
2.77r: / Forgeng p197:"How you shall change through and thrust to the other side against an opponent who strikes out your first thrust"
2.77v: "How you shall pull back the thrust as if you intended to thrust in elsewhere, and just as he will parry it, thrust back in where you had first threatened the thrust"
[skipped "how you shall counterthrust at the same time as he cuts"]
2.78r / Forgeng p198: "How you shall catch your opponent's cuts and thrusts, and countercut"
On the Sunday of Saint Catherine's, we had a picnic in Cornwall Park, and a tournament to select our new Baronial Fencing Champion. Eleanor Hall arranged the tournament, with assistance from Don William de Cameron, last year's champion.
We had five combatants:
Revision of the sequence:
On both sides, and building it up slowly, as we had some newer people.
We revised what we've been doing for the last several weeks. William and Ludwig noticed some interesting connections between the response in ochs to a counter-thrust which is parried (he attacks - you parry and thrust - he parries your thrust - you snap into Ochs and thrust anyway) and the 8-part play were were working on before that. I'll leave them to write it up.
We intended to quickly revise all the material we did last week, then make our way through the next sections. Instead, we found ambiguities and complexities we hadn't noticed last week, and never made our way out of the first paragraph:
2.76r, Forgeng p196
I'm going to start by giving Forgeng's translation of Meyer's text here, so I can refer back to it:
We continue to work our way through Book II of the rapier section:
2.76r, Forgeng p196
Our classic Meyer defense against cuts or thrusts below your guard, called sperren or "barring" in the section on parries:
Extra notes this time, from Meyer:
