T
he exercises contained in this book are designed to be as accessible as possible to a beginner with little or no experience, and no access to an instructor. They are structured to show you a range of basic concepts and techniques that can be assimilated reasonably quickly to allow you to fence properly. This is not the way I teach in my Salle. There, all students have regular access to an instructor, and know that they will not be fencing until they are ready. My school method is therefore designed to build up their technical repertoire slowly, and to work more on the manipulation of blade contact, body contact, distance and timing. Put another way, we focus on the transitions between techniques more than on the techniques themselves. That method is useless to a beginner without proper supervision. There are techniques and exercises in this book that many of my students have never seen, because they don’t need them; and on the other hand, there are drills that we do in the Salle that would be impossible to adequately describe in a book aimed at beginners.You will notice that almost all pair work with longswords shown in the photographs are done wearing no mask, jacket or pads. This is how I prefer to teach: under my supervision, my students do all pair work very slowly and carefully, working with total control.1 When they have got the hang
of the basics, and their forms and solo work is looking good at speed, then they kit up and do the drills faster. However, in the absence of an instructor, I allow no pair practice at all without full protection. Obviously, I cannot be present
when you are practising, but if you are practising my method please observe my rules and always wear a mask, jacket, gauntlets and pads when training with a partner. Everybody makes mistakes; anyone can slip, misjudge distance, or have a lapse in concentration. With these weapons, the first mistake can result in serious injury, so guard against it with proper protection.
The practice of the exercises in this book will clarify the general fencing principles; and the principles clarify the techniques. It is a positive feedback loop, so do not worry if at first you don’t understand the principles and can’t get the techniques right. There is only one way to transfer the idea of a technique from your head (where, no doubt, you are the most accomplished and graceful swordsman alive) to your hands and feet (which generally lag well behind in the grace stakes). That is repetition. Let me say that again. The only way to get good at swordsmanship is to do it a lot. Not just the fun, flashy stuff, but the simple, basic movements which can be tedious to do and unimpressive to look at to the uninformed. The device that allows you to practise these movements until they are right is drill. In other words, the following section comprises a series of drills that will, if practised over and over again, reprogram your body to move like a swordsman. We will begin with the feet, and work up.
W
arm-
upBefore beginning the swordsmanship exercises, it is a good idea to warm up. Once you have internalised the correct mechanics and your technique is very good, you will not need to warm up to defend yourself: you can’t say: “Hold on Mr. Mugger while I do some stretches so I don’t pull a muscle beating the crap out of you.” But before that, you will be stressed by even the basic actions. As you get fitter and better trained, the techniques you can attempt will become more demanding, so the warm up remains necessary. Every exercise in the warm-up is as much about body mechanics and breathing exercise as anything else. That said, there are three parts to a good warm-up:
1. Gently loosening the joints, especially the spine
2. Raising core-body temperature, sending blood into the muscles 3. Stretching
Much of the effectiveness of a warm-up is that it reminds the muscles to contract smoothly, using as many muscle fibres as necessary. One of the most common reasons for a training injury is through accidentally forcing insufficient muscle fibres to do the work that would normally be done with more. The exact exercises and stretches should mainly involve the muscle groups you are going to use: there is no point stretching the wrists before a footwork class: do it just before you actually start using your arms.
At SES we always begin with a warm-up followed by a footwork/body mechanics/unarmed combat session, then move on to weapons practice. (More advanced classes will sometimes go directly to weapons practice after the warm-up, so the warm-up is different.)
At the end of every training session, you should warm-down with ten minutes or so of stretching. When warming down, it is a good idea to hold each stretch for at least 30 seconds, breathing calmly and deeply. Focus on the muscle groups that are normally stiffest in the days after a really vigorous training session.
For a sample warm-up program, see Appendix B.