Renaissance Fence

Stoccata Class Notes

  This week we built on last week's lesson where we continued drilling the technical skills of the system as line drills by the numbers. Last week the emphasis was on the montante thrust, which is a concealed attack against an enemy. This week the emphasis is on the tramazzone. The advantage of the tramazzone from Guardia Alta is the protection it offers to the hand, as well as the circular momentum it uses to generate a good strong descending blow. I was really happy with the class performance this week, as everybody was cutting with good technique, and quickly learnt to defend the head strongly with a good skeletal alignment. We'll continue to concentrate on good technique over the coming weeks. Revision From Guardia Alta, pass right extending a montante thrust that ends in Guardia di Faccia. From Guardia Alta, pass with the left foot throwing a montante thrust that ends at the face. Immediately traverse right and throw a penetrating thrust to the face, redoubling with two tramazzoni to the head, ending in Porta di Ferro Stretta. ... More...

Stocatta Class Notes

After each lesson, Alonya and I tend to discuss the class on the drive home. Basically what worked, what didn’t, impressions on whether people were coping etc. Last week I spent more time than usual walking around correcting people’s actions. When reviewing what we’d done I came to the conclusion that we really didn’t achieve the outcome I was looking for last week. I suspect that doing the usual demonstration of the drill and then have people repeat was too much information for a lot of people. After last week’s problems, I switched the class approach this week to everyone working individually in line drills. I’m trying to teach correct form at this stage of the course, which I saw was suffering last week as people started concentrating on hitting people instead of doing the drill. A big part of this problem is the higher quotient of beginners this year, which means they are still learning how to swing a sword properly, and hitting people is always more fun than doing what you have to, and conversely people don’t like getting hit so don’t do the right thing in response as well. Anyway, we formed up as 3 li... More...

Stocatta Class Notes

  Overview It’s Bolognese – everything must be chopped finely! This lesson builds on the previous week where instead of making one cut per set of steps, we start making one cut per foot step. This is a crucial part of the Bolognese system and reflects the energy conserving nature of the system. We continue working from Guardia Alta as our starting guard. Concept 1 - Offensive Combinations Using Mandritto and Riverso This is one of the primary combinations of the system, and we look at 2 variants to demonstrate how the different footwork creates openings to attack our opponent. A) Mandritto to head & riverso Pass with your right foot into large pace, throwing a mandritto to the head ending in Sotto il Bracchio. Redouble with a riverso ending in Coda Lunga Stretta as the left foot comes behind to complete the pass. [Manciolino Libro 2, 1st Assault] Class notes: From Guardia ... More...

Stocatta Class Notes

Introduction  Bologna has a long and glorious tradition of being recognised as one of Europe's premier breeding grounds for fencing masters. It is also the place of Europe's oldest University and as such may have contributed to the high recognition given to the city's fencing fraternity. There is no recognised lineage of fencing masters recorded for the fencing masters of Bologna. The first record of Italian fencing masters begins with a reference to three Italian fencing masters who were operating in Paris in 1292: Master Tommaso, Master Nicolò and Master Filippo. Other masters are mentioned over the following years, and all from the Northern regions of Italy. The first recorded instance of a Bolognese fencing master is to a Master Rosolino whom was reported to be teaching in 1338, followed by a Master Francesco in 1354, and then by Master Nerio in 1385. Aside from their names we know nothing regarding these fencing masters. The next reference is to our first known Bolognese author, Filippo (or Lippo) di Bartolomeo Dardi. He was a Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the U... More...

Just a quick note

You may have noticed a dearth of blogging the last month. I've been busy getting ready for the wedding to Alonya on 11/11/11... I made the frock coats and vests for the best mate and myself. It's not left me any time. The last 2 weeks since the wedding I've been switching off and enjoying reading on my new Kobo Touch ereader. I'm currently reading Peter V. Brett, and finding his 2 books really hard to put down. I'm hoping to get back to doing some updates shortly, which will be starting in on the Bolognese sword and dagger material. Rick ... More...

Review of training 4 Oct 2011

OK so I should have written this up before the trip to the US. The night was a repeat of the week before, but this time as contact drills to hone the actions from the progression. Drill 1: Action 6. Pass right from Guardia Alta throwing mandritto to Sopra il Bracchio then riverso to Coda Lunga Stretta. This is one of the cornerstone sequences, and an excellent sequence for teaching how to throw redoubled cuts. The first bit of the mandritto to Sopra il Bracchio tends to create a few issues as everything can bind up at first. The first trick is you make the cut to the head aiming to end with the sword point forward, and your sword hand crossed over the top of your buckler arm. As your sword hand comes towards the buckler arm, turn your thumb from 2 o'clock to 10 o'clock. This will make a little space behind the buckler which your sword hand will fit into quite comfortably. This action is all made on the first step with the right foot. The second cut begins with the turn of the sword hand, which will pull the blade through the enemy, and you can then let the blade turn through to back down w... More...

WMAW 2011 in Depth

My WMAW class schedule was heavy on Classical Italian Fencing, Iberian fencing and a bit of rapier. We arrived early Thursday morning at the De Koven Centre, about 40 minutes before classes started, so I had a little bit of a rush to get to my first class, since we were up on the second floor (3rd floor for you Americans reading this) My first class was Italian 19th Century duelling sword with Maestro John Sullins, so I hastily put the epee together and got changed and went off to class. I missed the intro, but got there in time for the physical lessons. The class was mostly straight Italian epee theory, which suited me and woke up the lunging muscles! :-) A lot of work focussed on targeting the forearm and elbow of the opponent's sword arm. Maestro then ended out the class by running a one touch judged hit tournament. It was fun, and I ended up being runner up out of the dozen people in the class. William from the Fencing Masters Program got the win, because I was stupid and over committed my lunge. It was close fought though because we had a couple of double touches, and touches I called back because they did not seat. I was happy with my second bo... More...

Chicago in Depth

I gave an overview of the 2011 USA trip in my last post, so now onto some specifics. OK so Chicago was the first stop, and we had accommodation with Dawn from CSG, who lives just outside Downtown Chicago in Bronzeville. This made it very easy to do the stuff we wanted. She very nicely provided a meze plate dinner when we arrived Saturday evening, which suited both of us as we'd been on the go for 24 hours. She does a mean spinach and cheese frittata! The first day in Chicago was a Sunday, so we went for a bit of a tour Downtown. Alonya and I wanted to scope out the new Kobo Touch ereader, as well as get a prepaid SIM for our phones, so Best Buy was the first stop. Unfortunately there were no ereaders in stock, so we didn't get a chance to play with one. Bit of a shame really, as we both use our phones quite heavily to read books using the KOBO app, but it drains the batteries pretty quick. The ereader isn't released in Oz yet, so we thought it would have been a good opportunity to get one early, saving our phone batteries. We did get the SIM's, but had to run up to the T-mobile store to get them ac... More...

General Musings on my 2011 trip to the USA

Well it's the day after I got back and the body clock is still somewhere between Fiji & New Zealand, but the rest of me is in Sydney! :-) Alonya and I spent the last 2 weeks in the US, and we had a really good time. We feel better after this trip than we did the last one as we actually ate a lot better than our last trip. This is really just a bit of a blog about the general feeling of the trip. I'll write some more detailed posts about various aspects later. Our itinerary was Sydney to LA, layover 2 hours in LA and than on to Chicago, arriving there on Saturday the 10th of September. We then had a few days in Chicago staying with a friend we made on the last trip, and then traveling up to Racine in Wisconsin on the Thursday morning. Thursday through to Sunday was WMAW 2011, with a whole lot of fencing classes and stuff to keep me out of mischief. Then Monday we flew to San Francisco to hop a ride up to Davis to do some sight seeing and spend some time with the guys in Sacramento. The guys in the US are now shaking their heads because it's about 25 miles from Davis to Sacramento, but we ended up staying with Puck and Mary in Sacramento fr... More...

Update from Chicago

OK, so I'm sitting in Starbucks with Alonya & Dawn, and it's 5.37pm. Been interesting doing the tourist thing around Chicago, and our local guide Dawn has been great pointing out some of the bizarre architecture around the place. One thing very different this time around is we've actually had some really decent food, unlike our last visit. Got to finally eat a Ruebens sandwich today, and it's actually really good, but then again I've always like corned beef. That's been the real discovery of the whole trip so far, you can get good food if you look hard enough. It's hid away in the smaller cafes and diners by the look of it. Anyway more on that another time. Mostly this is an update for my students in Sydney. Sorry guys, I just haven't had time to sort out lessons for you. Work went insane just before I left, and between it and getting ready for the trip I didn't have the time. Rick ... More...

Review of Training for 30 Aug 2011

This was a non-contact night, which we spent starting to learn the next sequence of Manciolino's 1st Progression. The class started with the Embellishment, and we then moved into the start of Part B. Each step was practiced 5 times to get that individual action working and understood. Once we'd worked through all that, we took a short drinks break, and then when we came back started at the embellishment doing each sequence in turn. Reasonable night for all with the 9th step being the hardest. The falso traversale is a false edge cut across the line of engagement to the left check of the opponent. It's quite an awkward action until you get the little wrist flick working to drive the cut. R. Drills for 30 Aug 2011 Continuing to learn the Progression… The Embellishment adds 1 new action (A), which is followed by 2 actions we already know. We'll then continue with Part B, aiming to learn up to step 9. The plan is to do each new step on it's own first, and then we'll build the progression. New steps to drill will be A, 5,6,7,8,9. Embellishm... More...

Review of training for 23 Aug 2011

This time around, I had a meeting to go to which meant I couldn't make the Tuesday night training session. So it was a revision night with some more detailed instructions. Feedback on Thursday was mostly they could follow everything, but had a few issues. The first issue was falling short on the redoubled cut. Watching them run through the drill, I pointed out that they were letting the torso come upright, and not maintaining the straight line between back leg and torso. So, repeating with the required forward leaning torso, they found they could reach the head on the cut after all. The second issue was getting the cut to the inside of the wrist behind the buckler. That was due to the sword hand being kept too low which gave a poor angle for the attack. They needed to lift the hand to above shoulder height, to allow for a good angle to cut into the inside of the buckler arm. So with out further ado, here's the drills for the night. Bolognese Drills for 23 Aug 2011 Objective This lesson is a revision of the provocation with a thrust. The purpose behind these particular drills is to teach the student ... More...

Some fixes in the blog layout

For regular readers of the Blog page, you'll notice that the layout has changed. I'd like to thank Stano for his excellent work sorting this out, as he's the php coder for the module. My php coding ability is non existent. The only thing I worked out was how to not put the content preview in italics! In brief, I wanted it to switch from a layout of: date & subtitle Title No content preview to ... Title date & sub-title Content preview Details on how to do this for your gpEasy installation can be found over on the gpEasy forum (http://gpeasy.com/Special_Forum?show=t571) Richard ... More...

Review of training 16 Aug 2011

Well after a 2 week hiatus, we are back to the training on Tuesday nights. I had some fun with the guys from Swordplay, who pick up things pretty damn quick. Thanks to Karin, Kathleen and all the folks for making us feel so welcome. OK, so on to the Bolognese Study group lessons... Based on the problems we'd experienced 2 weeks ago, I decided this lesson we would concentrate on the start of the first progression. A part of the problem I felt was people had a disconnect between the actual actions, and what happens in the fight. So I built the lesson around explaining how the actions work, and hopefully teaching them some fluidity and understanding of the purpose of the progression actions. Judging by the fluidity people started to get into their progressions by the end of the night, I feel like we had a successful lesson. I certainly didn't have the mental breaks we did 2 weeks ago, and people told me that they felt a lot happier with this particular lesson. Even David, one of my shift working students who doesn't get to train as much as he'd like, managed the lesson as well, and he' s not done any Bolognese work. ... More...

Good Looking Kit

I've been trolling around the Net looking for ideas for use on the SCA armoured combat field, or maybe to boost the appearance of my own Stoccata / C&T kit. A particular favourite is the forums at the Armour Archive, which has a couple of threads on good looking kit. I'm going to highlight a few kits here just for the absolute WOW factor. My particular favourite is this 16th Century German kit by Robert of Canterbury, an archive member in London, UK. I must admit to having returned to look at this again and again just for his overall appearance, which looks like he's stepped straight out of the Turnierbuch of Hans Burgkmair. When I first saw this, I thought it was someone from a Living History group, which was followed by an absolute jaw drop when I realised the longsword was rattan. Absolutely the nicest period kit I have ever seen for use in the SCA, and definitely something to aspire to. If you're not familiar with the Turnierbuch have a look at the digital version hosted by the BSB at  ... More...

No drills for 01 Aug 2011 or 08 Aug 2011

Just a quick update. Monday night we arrived to find we couldn't get into the hall as the locks appear to have been changed. Since the light in the carpark wasn't enough to work by, we decided the pub was a better option. We move to the new hall next week, and class will now be a Tuesday, which clashes the last of the Swordplay classes I'm teaching, so there is also no class for next week. The planned drills for 01 Aug will be the class for 16 Aug. Rick ... More...

Correction to Manciolino interpretation of Guardia Alta attacks...

I've been conversing with a couple of guys in Melbourne, who were at my recent C&T combat stream class. They've been following the blog, and you can see Justin has been asking questions in the comments. I also got some other questions via email etc, and in the process of answering this particular question I decided to show them how I derived the interpretation, which led me to the conclusion Jherek's translation had an error! OK, so here's the particular section - Sword & Buckler > Guardia Alta - attacks with mandritto & riverso, and in particular the one from the 3rd assault (which was also Drill 3 from 25/7/2011)... Pass with your right foot, and throw a mandritto to the leg ending in Sopra il Braccio. Traverse left and throw a riverso to the face, ending in Coda Lunga Alta. (Libro 2, 3rd Assault) The trick for me is to turn my palm upwards a... More...

Drills for 25 July 2011

Discussion of the night's session Not a good night for me. Things fell apart and I came away frustrated. OK, so the plan was to do the progression first so people can start to learn it, with an aim to use it for teaching people to flow from one guard to the next. The next part was going to be tramazzone drills to teach people to loosen up their hands and wrists, since I'd noticed the week before that people were a bit rigid in their cutting actions. Things fell apart from the start. I got the progression sequence wrong, so that started a little bit of confusion for the night. The other problem was one of the other local fencers who isn't part of the study group was there, and I let him join in. That was the big mistake because a) I ended up spending too much trying to bring him up to speed b) too much time trying to convince him to "just do the drill, I'll explain things afterwards". Not his fault, mine for letting him derail me. I should have been a lot more forceful about what the ground rules were for the night's training. The other problem was the guys tend to watch each other, and the irregular i... More...

Updates in the Bolognese Swordsmanship material

I've been working on my Bolognese Swordsmanship material I've just updated some pages in Chapter 1 of the Manciolino section. The Basic Blows page has had the cutting diagram added, as well as additional description for the common cuts, referencing the cutting lines on the diagram. I've also added the Basic Footwork page, which describes the footwork descriptors I use, as well as some stepping diagrams to show what I mean. I've also added a new chapter - Manciolino's Sword and Dagger The Marozzo section, which has been lying empty for quite a while now finally has some material. The first page for Marozzo is his Sword and Dagger material, which really well in conjunction with Manciolino's material. Well that's it for the updates for the material, more will come when it... More...

Drills for 18 July 2011

This was week 1 for the Sydney Bolognese study group, which have started up on Monday nights. The objective was to get the group cutting smoothly, and redoubling the action using various bits of footwork. For all the drills we did the 5 times at 50% then 5 times at 75% and finally 5 times at full speed. At all times I had people cutting with intent through the correct lines. We're working at speed to train everybody to do this on demand. Oh and I'm doing all the drills as well since I also need to build my skills since I can't do everything on demand yet either. Since the blow to the head can get quite tedious, we interspersed the first defensive action into the first 4 drills such that the buckler became a focus target. On the whole the night worked really well, and everybody got a lot out of it. We all wormed up, set to it with the drills and then did cool down stretches together. Great night, and people were feeling better about throwing redoubled blows by the end of the night. I felt really happy coming out of this session, and felt like I'd given people a great night's training. The drills for the night are ... More...

Blog Home Older Entries