We’re continuing to extract pieces of the cutting drill form, and drills from the curriculum, and expanding them by adding flow (guard transitions), choices (degrees of freedom), and varying or eliminating the assignment of impetus to feeder or worker. Tonight we worked on drill 2 and a hitting combination consisting of a passing to dente di cinghiaro, then a thrust with a pass, followed by a fendente and angle footwork.

We started by working the form fragment: start in posta di donna destra, advance with a cut to dente di cinghiaro, advance with a thrust, then cut a wide offline step while throwing a follow-up fendente, transitioning to some known guard to finish.

Now to work with the partner:

The defender waits in tutta porta di ferro. The feeder starts in a right-side guard, advances with a guard transition (cut) into dente di cinghiaro, then attacks with a thrust and a pass with the left foot. This produces the scenario of the breaking of the thrust drill.

A variation in impetus has the defender launching a preemptive attack once the feeder hits the dente di cinghiaro guard. If the defender catches the feeder before he advances, the drill 2 scenario is produced, and the feeder parries from the left (a la master of the sword in one hand).

Finally, removing assigned impetus from both partners can potentially create a situation where the feeder is advancing with the thrust while the defender is advancing with a fendente. Thus timing and distance variations need to be dealt with by both parties.

As before, we’re working these drills at half speed, with minimal or no hand protection, and paying close attention to covering the opponent’s blade, with the goal of avoiding sacrifice kills.

Four present. We’re still working on the themes of flow and adaptation, using drill 1 as a starting framework. Yours truly is still recovering from the shoulder dislocation so no wrestling or dagger plays for me. Also working on combo hitting and guard transitions.

I’m working on getting the group used to doing drill work at half speed, with good flow and without stiff power. Employing good, technical, correct technique (no suicide plays). Concept of a designated victor who has the impetus to finish the drill, but retaining proper responses from the feeder partner. By example, today we work attacker’s prerogative, but the defender is still free to employ appropriate countermeasures, just a beat slower and with lighter pressure: a looser flow from the call-and-response format of the canonical drill.

Forms practice, working the first half of the cutting drill

Substitute rear-weighted fenestra guard for the second cut on each side

Substitute rear-weighted fenestra guard for the first cut on each side as well

Drill 1 with a few variants, and a designation of the attacker (feeder) as the one to finish.

1. Attacker starts in a left-side guard, walks into passing range with a cut finishing on a right-side guard, then launches an attack, passing with a mandritto fendente.
2. Defender can parry and then proceed with the sword grab or pass-right and fendente plays as designated in drill 1. Defender can also step in and counter-strike to move the play into stretto.
3. I had a few attacker followups to play with:
   • Given a decent parry, leave the bind and raise the tip over defender’s sword. Start cutting toward his head but then firmly parry his sword down and to the right. Follow up with a quick sottano.
   • Pass left, cover and try to get around to transition to stretto plays e.g. pommel strike
   • Move in with a thrust. Get in range to sword-grab, to pommel strike if he raises his hands, etc.

During March and April we were the grateful beneficiaries of several weeks’ pugilism instruction from Mr. R. He is now taking an extended leave from the group so that he can tend to other responsibilities. In his absence we are trying to drill the basic skills he taught us, getting as many reps as possible while preserving correct form. If we can keep that program running over the next couple of months we might have enough grounding in pugilism basics to be ready for further improvement when Mr. R comes back.

Much of our attention in the last couple of weeks has been focused on the shovel hook. All of the basic punches in pugilism are complicated and non-intuitive movements, but the shovel hook requires even more careful attention than the others because of its complexity. Delivered properly, it should be an upward blow into the opponent’s midsection, powered by the legs. Typically it is delivered while coming up out of a duck. The rope drill is used to give us a fixed object to duck under. The lead foot advances to the side of the adversary, the rear foot drags up behind it and plants, and the pugilist rises up out of a sort of crouch while driving the rear fist up into the target. The footwork can become confused unless all of the four possible permutations are sorted out and practiced separately (right vs. left lead X attacking to right or attacking to left). All four of those permutations are covered by the two different rope drills, but during the 15 May practice we teased them apart and worked them separately in an improvised pad drill as well.

Great workout – six total in attendance, including the return of lost brother William. We worked on some footwork tweaks, on the four crossings drill, and some basics involving two guys, each with daggers, trying to murder each other.

Footwork tweaks

Make a guard stance, either left or right forward. Draw the knee forward over the toe. Now do a pass. The goal is to eliminate the telegraphing of pushing the knee forward before passing — it is already forward, so when you pass you can spring forward with less telegraphing. Obviously, we also want to eliminate the capital crime of repositioning either foot prior to passing. Try working this concept in a group, circling to left or right, passing forward with a fendente from posta di donna on cue from one of the group members.

Four crossings drill

This is a subset of Mr. Windsor’s 13 crossings drill. This one looks at four commonplace mid-sword crosses.

We worked on this quite a bit, playing it as follows:

• For the two largo variants, worker waits with left foot forward
• For the two stretto variants, worker waits with right foot forward
• For largo variants, feeder binds the sword with light pressure and then performs feed.
• For stretto variants, feeder binds the sword with threatening pressure and then performs feeds

We then took the first largo variant, the step offline and fendente against the arms after the feeder leaves the bind. We looked at the situation where the feeder comes in, the swords cross and then the feeder immediately leaves the bind and tries to cut around the other side. Note that this is not a smart action on the part of the feeder, but nevertheless it is something that we see in free play contexts. We tried two variant responses. One that seemed obvious was to offline *left*, thus moving away from the incoming blade to cover and simultaneously counterattack. This proved to be inferior, however, to sticking with the play, which means off lining *right*, cutting to cover the strike, and then transitioning to stretto actions. Super-effective.

Dagger stuff

Somewhat loose drill of trying to interrupt a dagger attack in the measure of the opponent’s entry (catch and simultaneously counter or just counter).

Ended with free play rounds with dagger (Eric, James and William) and then longsword (Eric vs. James).

Eric was absent and so Neal and Kip did a cursory run-through of German Longsword 101, culminating in the “defending the wall” drill, which we did considerably less effectively than these people, who gave us the idea.

Four in attendance. Pre-practiced some of the trickier moves in the physical culture routine, since the Figure 8 indian club move continues to baffle and confound a large portion of the membership. Then launched into the sequence and came out the other side an hour and fifteen minutes later pleasantly tired and sweaty. More people are showing up with hand wraps, which makes the punching phase of the workout work considerably more satisfactory. We began by striking the standing heavy bag, then moved to a pad drill, then donned shin guards and ran through the basic la canne kicks. We are still under-equipped in this department. One of our shin guard pairs is completely ineffective against the dreaded Rockport Steel-toed Wingtips.

Weapons practice was truncated by the fact that Mr. Barnett is still not on this continent. The plan was to work the cane moves known as the flick and the flip. These turn out to demand a lot of forearm strength, of which no one had any left as a consequence of the workout.

Continuing our study of the canonical plays of the Zogho Largo, we reviewed the two parry responses to thrusts (exchange of thrusts and breaking the thrust). We worked on the thrust exchange quite a bit, and then finished up with some cardio.

• Hitting and stepping practice:
• From right PDD, mandritto fendente through to boars’ tooth, then stab with a pass
• From left PDD, reverse fendente through to full iron gate, then stab with a pass
• Instructional review of the two thrust parries from zogho largo
• Intensive practice of the exchange of thrusts including careful examination of sword/footwork timing on the parry, parry sword crossing positioning, footwork details of the accressare and pass
• Intensive practice of “just the parry and accressare” using wasters and aggressive feeds
• Cardio:
• Wall pushups
• Crunches, situps-to-seated, situps-to-kneel with pushup intervals
• Dagger and focus mitt rounds
• Waster rounds on the pells, with fendente entry and then with stab entries (doubled hits)