How to run a fighting practice

I taught two classes at Aedult Swim this year, one was called "Footwork" and the other was called "Structured Drills for Sword and Shield." What they actually were, were classes on how to run classes--not the meet once at Pennsic then go home and practice what you've learned if you can remember it classes, but how to run a weekly fighter practice.

Now, we rarely get to do this. I tried to do it when I was the provincial Knight Marshal, but most people aren't interested. The want to fight. For the most part, we don't teach in the SCA and we don't train in the SCA. Those who do (Duke Paul, Duke Sean, Duke Lucan, Viscount Wulfsagan, Duke Branos, the Trimarans at Duke U) are, even now, fifty years into the SCA, way ahead of everybody else.

Most of the stuff in this blog comes from my teacher, Duke Paul of Bellatrix, and detailed discussion of these ideas can be found at the Bellatrix Fighting School web page.

For most of us, the SCA teaches the way it always has--by the school of (literal) hard knocks. You put on armor, and you practice. Individual trainers may spend some time working with you on this or that shot, but mostly we train ourselves, on the pell, then we jump into the pool and fight. At first, as new fighters, we are trying to survive. Next, as we gain experience, we try to win every fight. Then, one of three things happen. In the first scenario, we go to practice and fight five-ten fights with an opponent. We try hard to win the first two, then we get lazy. We start fighting silly. We start trying stuff we have never practiced before. Or we fight five to ten fights with an opponent and try a new technique we are working on over and over again, as though the person is a moving pell. In the third scenario, we fight five to ten fights with someone, trying a different technique in every fight. The first of these is terrible. It teaches you bad habits. The second of these is better, as you are working on technique, and you can perfect your body mechanics, but that's all. After the first two fights your opponent knows what is coming and always blocks it. This has the additional downside that it's a waste of your opponent's time. Such an approach is usually best left to structured drills. The third approach is better. Work on a variety of techniques in each set and mix them up. It's often a good idea to limit the number of fights you have with each fighter (I usually cap it at either five or three when I'm training for a tourney).

More structured training is available. The SCA Fighter's Handbooke has a long article on how to teach and train, with some good ideas in it. Paul's website is a good source. Even more useful, in some ways, is his article in the Known World Handbook, where he talks about how to organize classes. That's what I was working on, particularly in class number two.

In the footwork class, I taught foot work drills that can be done out of armor and should be part of any class you teach, armored or unarmored. We worked on incressare and decressare (fencing footwork), walked in straight lines with toes on the ground, walked with a pavane step, a grapevine step, and a cha-cha. We worked on direction using a compass star. Then we did distance drills in a straight line. Finally we did distance work in the round, where the agent tries to advance on the patient agent, who tries always to keep his opponent in front of him.

In the armored class, I set out to teach, not the drills themselves, but how to run the class. The class wold normally start with some footwork drills, but we'd done that in the previous class, so I skipped it. We started out with simple sword blocking drills (like the saber parry drill, which looks like Heidelberg fencing), then sword and shield drills.  Next comes slow work. Then comes structured situational drills, where they were given a specific technique, like a blow and footwork combo, and they drilled it slowly with one another. Then I worked with each of them individually on target recognition. Finally we did some free fighting. Every practice should end in free fighting. We lined up, and everybody in line had to fight everybody else once.  There are lots of drills you can incorporate into this training.

The core to this idea is that fighter practice for newer fighters, and perhaps all unbelted fighters, should be run as a class, and that class should have the following components:

• Footwork Drills
• Weapon (and shield) drills
• Slow Work
• Situational drills
• Free Sparing

These techniques should be done with partners. If preferable, they should be of the same height. If there is a left handed fighter, some of the drills are a bit different, but the structure is the same. If there are two left handed fighters, don't have them drill with each other often (one in three classes is probably good) since most of the time they won't be facing another left handed fighter. 

A couple more points. 

• This article is about teaching not training. Training is a broader topic. It is more individual. It has a different purpose. It involves a lot of things that are a part, of but outside of, fighting -- strength, flexibility, aerobics, etc. 
• Advanced fighters need more training, less teaching. In armor, this is mostly done through fighting--in tourneys, free sparring, etc. Once of the reasons SCA fighter practice is usually just a bunch of free sparring is because this is what the advanced fighters need, so that's what they want to do, leaving few people to teach. 
• HOWEVER, advanced fighters need a trainer too. This is best done in small groups or individually. Now you are not learning techniques, you are perfecting them, which takes a lot of individual work. It was said back in the day that the best way to get really good was to learn from Paul for two or three years, then go train with Sagan. Paul would teach you what you needed to know, Sagan would make you good at it.
• Paul's method of teaching new fighters involves a lot of training before getting into armor. Some of the best fighters I've run into were people that worked with Paul just doing slow work and pell work for a year or more before they got into armor for the first time. (I was the first person ever to fight Paul's son Duke Stephen. Me, Njal, and Stephen were on our way home from a West/CAID war and we took a detour to Santa Cruz. We went out to the beach next to the railroad trestle, where they filmed The Lost Boys, and put Stephen into Njal's armor. He was still in high school, and had never fought heavy before--but He'd learned from his dad. He was as good at that moment as I was--at the time fighting in the upper rounds of Coronet, one of the better unbelted fighters in the principality. 
• Dance is the best way to learn footwork. It's also good for aerobics. 
• Most of your work is done without armor on. 

The classes at Aedult Swim went really well. While I hope the students got some practical drills out of them, what I really hope is that they got a new way to approach fighter practice.