Practice Report - 12/1/15

This week I spent a lot more time teaching than actually fighting.  Orlando asked me to run drills this week, and rather than just doing footwork drills, I ran a drill to help work on opposition and disengages.  We had three people who are newer to fencing in the SCA, Jonathan who  has been at it for about a year, Miles who just started, and Tim who started just prior to Pennsic but has a background in modern epee and saber.  I realized quickly that Miles didn't know the basic terminology, so in order to help build him up and as a refresher for  everyone, we worked on wards and building a common language.  For me, this is based on modern french foil.  This is what I was taught, and is understood by many, so it gives us a basis for understanding and instruction.

In observing Tim over the past few months, he has a lot of energy, but not a lot of blade work.  His parries are all parry by distance, retreating out of the way, but not availing himself of the opportunity to attack or counter attack.  We discussed this, and he commented to me that many a coach tried to break him of the habit, but it worked for him on the strip, so they just let him continue as it would win matches.

We had a bit of a discussion on what he wanted out of this game and the SCA, and what he was willing to do.  He could be a good fencer by just continuing with his instincts, but he wants to be better than that, so thus began the process of introducing new skills.  His parries were weak and there was never a riposte coming from him, so we started with defense.  In order to allow him to concentrate on his bladework and not retreat out, I placed his rear foot/leg against a wall.  We then began a slow drill of parry, followed by a riposte.  We worked this, but he was still trying to rely on body movement  without any blade movement to get out of the way during the drill.  So  we slowed it down even more to concentrate on just the parry.

Not wanting to burn him out, we stopped so he could fence.  We discussed him concentrating on his blade work and not retreating, but its still his first instinct.  He's also sitting in more of a gunslinger stance, not covering his opponents blade or even covering a line defensively.  I could see him getting frustrated, and when that hit, all the talk about standing ground and working with the blade went out the window.  There was some good stuff in there as well.  I called a hold and showed him how and why his opponent had free access to strike at him, without him being able to do the same.  I showed him how I could sense and tell where an opponent was going if we had a little blade contact.  I did it  with my eyes closed.  Jonathan moved his blade and I followed it blind, due to feeling it through the sword.  They did a few more passes and we talked afterwards.  I think Tim is of the mindset that he needs to win his bouts, even in practice.

After that I got a little fencing in against Malcolm.  I switched back to my 37" blade and found it to  be comforting like an old pair of jeans.  At one point, I tweaked the ankle, so we did a few more passes and I called it a night.

In other news, next weekend at Yule at the Palazzo (Bhakail), I will be taking on the role of provost to Master Jean Xavier Boullier.  This was something that was discussed at the Roses Tourney, where I broached the idea with him.  It further strengthens our friendship, and I can think of no finer men to take on a project such as myself.