2003 Scola Metallorum Rapier Training Manual

Introduction: Drills and Information, What We Forgot to Tell You

No matter how experienced... to believe oneself knowledgeable is an error. -- Qwa Ja Nim Larry Hampton

Drills for very simple basics are the obvious place for you and/or your group to begin your training. But even in a single class session, they are not enough to promote and develop expertise. We have developed a training regimen based on the "layered exercise".

We often take a particular moment or series of events that we have experienced in a duel or melee and take it apart. Each element is then trained; which is a simplified and admittedly artificial approach in some ways, as it does not mimic the fluid nature of combat. It does have some advantages though.

1. Things happen too fast in actual fighting for deep analysis.
2. There often isn't time to retrace your steps at that moment, and master the techniques you pulled out to save your ass.
3. Programming what you did fast and sloppy so that it's available next time must be done in a slower and, above all, controlled format.
4. This allows the same techniques to not only be available at a later date, but you will be able to perform them in a more controlled, efficient and effective manner.
5. As each layer is added the fighter can assess their skill level. If the next variation is beyond their capabilities, they can drop down to the last one with a clearer understanding of how they're doing at that particular skill. Honest self-assessment is also one of our core principles.

It is vitally important that you not rush through the drills. Don't let ego drive you beyond the level you should be training at, just because you want to fulfill a fantasy image. Spend enough time on each segment to feel some sense of mastery. If you advance too quickly to another layer, you defeat the purpose of drills and layering as a concept. It's also fun to return to a drill after some time has passed and see how much your skills have developed.

It takes practice and familiarity for the layered concept to show results. Students must be brought into the regime gradually. If you try to do too complex, advanced or lengthy a drill, you're finished before you started. Remember, old hands can always use remedial training and review; that's part of your responsibility as the instructor. However, after a couple of years doing layered exercises, some truly amazing and intricate drills can be attempted with satisfactory results. The first exercise given below has additional, expanded information to show you how the same drill can be practiced by novices and advanced fighters simultaneously. After awhile, advanced fighters will automatically assess, advance and attempt variations on the basic drills that tax their capabilities; and do it without disrupting the novice or the basic intent of the lesson. Allow this creativity to develop but always maintain control and discipline. Both you and your students will be amply rewarded.

Add this to your training notebooks or personal journals and look it over periodically.

Your Obedient Servant, RTM

But if he is the sort for whom fighting is a means -- to respect, to rank, to power -- or to whom fighting is a chance to indulge his cruelty, his pride or compensate for his imagined failings, then by all means he should fight. -- The Screwtape Letters

Mission Statement and Philosophy

Everybody wants to win, but thinking too much about winning has a negative effect. You can make many foolish mistakes and overlook some obvious good moves if you are obsessed with winning. Better than thinking about winning is thinking about playing well... Try to be a gracious winner and graceful loser. Everybody wins some and looses some, so being too happy about winning or unhappy about losing is shortsighted, as is envy: you don't know who's got the best deal until the very end of the show. -- Learn to Play Go, Volume III: The Dragon Style, by Janice Kim (1 dan) and Jeong Soo-hyun (9 dan)

This manual is dedicated to enriching individuals interested in SCA Style Rapier Combat.

We will focus on basic principles that we have found lead to successfully killing your opponent without getting killed. We will give our philosophy about dueling, our approach to training, our mindset for combat and the positive results gleaned from the field (meaning we're alive and they are dead!).

Some of this book is based on facts: physics, anatomy, testing, and pure mathematical modeling.

Some of this book is based on our experiences (which are subjective, true) but probably factual: in other martial arts, during real fights/combat, on the field within the SCA parameters.

Some of this book is based on our beliefs and opinions. But even these have been built upon some kind of knowledge base: how people (including ourselves) react to stress/pain/fear, world views we've found in ourselves, met in other fighters, dogmas/faiths (that are not supported by facts as we've found them to be), etc. Every martial art creates it's own myths. Rules and conventions wall off exploration and creativity. Soon you have dancing instead of fighting and everyone who puts on the pretty uniforms and belts believes it's real, because they've worked very hard to make it so.

This is not a scientific treatise. Although between us, we can boast (which, we admit is generally a bad thing) of two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees, this is not an academic exercise. We're not writing a thesis. Any stilted, academic styling you read will quickly disappear after this initial introduction and definition stage. We are passionate about this game, make no mistake. We have devoted many hours to perfecting our understanding, our field craft, our teaching methods, our students... but we don't wear funny clothes. We don't give a hoot about style for style's sake. We aren't here to recreate historically accurate anything. Read your history. Fencing teachers have, in the past, been a very disreputable bunch; barely better than common street hoods and assassins. We've taken some of that philosophy to heart. The SCA gave us the rules and the tools. Within that framework we're determined to become the very best sword fighters on the planet (as if our lives were at stake). Within our philosophy, Conventions and Chivalry must stand on the shoulders of superior skill and technique: not substitute for them.

The idol at which we worship is "excellence" (or arete, a Greek word for all-around competence). Our ultimate litmus test has always been: "Does it work?" on the field, against someone whose sole purpose in being there is to guarantee that it, whatever it is, doesn't work. Our approach is also colored by the "what if it were real" deadly consequences of sword fighting that haunts this game.

We try to face, as much as is theoretically possible, what might happen to us if we ever had to do it with sharpened steel. We recognize that conjecture and opinion will fog up the landscape, until we can "take the tips off" and cast our lives where our mouths have led. We are always thinking about it. Our experience (my intimate, long-term experience with people really trying to kill each other) suggests that this "sport" is about as close to the "real thing" as one can get. The fact that tips break off and people die every once in a while, leads us to believe we can get (reasonably) close if we keep that central principle firmly in mind: Today I'm playing a game, tomorrow it could mean my life!

We've found that many historical figures that wrote manuals of fencing covered all the bases. The period masters advocate analyzing an opponent, channeling their initial attack, blocking and countering (mostly with stop thrusts that follow so closely on the attack that an opponent is essentially paralyzed and motionless) to lethal targets that end the bout instantly.

What's confusing is (beyond the archaic language) the fairly insurmountable task of committing a dynamic, flowing, interactive physical activity to a format as stilted and fixed as the written word. Martial artists from every culture have had to face this problem. Some Asian martial arts have turned their back on the issue and returned to the "one teacher-one student" system that is basically an oral/physical tradition. This is an indispensable corner stone of any martial system; you can't really learn from a book. Practical training and drill are definitely part of the picture. However, working with one person or one school or one system introduces weaknesses, too. Things like: Dogmatism, holes in the system, focus that leads to only one optimal body type, reliance on "secret, never-fail techniques," and simple familiarity with how another person moves and their best moves can give any martial artist a false sense of security. If you've ever fought someone new who pulls out a totally different combination, timing or technique and eaten a blade before you got your mind in gear, you know what I'm talking about. Nobody knows it all, nobody has all the answers (including us), and anything, including a perfectly executed move, can get you killed.

Which brings me (finally!) to the central point. There are generalizations, guidelines and "rules of thumb" that can greatly improve your fencing. Not one of them is new. Many others have written principles of combat. If you're serious about the Warrior's Path, you'll read everything available from every art about fighting that's ever been written (and translated into English). We've provided a generous reading list/bibliography at the end of this manual, so start reading (editors note: this is on its way). Maybe you can't learn any one martial art from any one book, but more knowledge from other martial artists/sources can't hurt.

So.

This is not a limited "do this, do that" book, this is a Sun Tzu (if you don't know who he is, refer to the previous paragraph), "fundamental principles" book.

The Theory: Successful Offense and Defense

Kill with a borrowed knife. -- The Secret Art of War: The 36 Stratagems

Pretend you're looking down on two fencers who are dueling. Not like that, Oh Arrogant One, I mean actually watching the fight from a bird's eye view.

If you've watched enough humans do this, you can see all the possible ways they can move their feet, their head, body, arms. You can actually see (if you've spent enough time observing yourself and others while fencing) the targets they can defend and the targets they can't, at any one moment. I've heard observers around me comment, "His head is wide open." or "Use the leg sweep!" How do experienced fighters come to know these things?

Some of it is fairly simple. Having only two legs means I have many balance problems. If this foot is in the air then that foot is carrying the weight. It's not going anywhere. The knee only bends one direction; for so many degrees. Once the leg is straight, it's up to the pivoting potential of the hip and ankle to provide any additional movements. The body twists. The head bobs. The elbow bends in one direction and not in the other. The shoulder rotates, so...

Essentially there are a finite number of movements that qualify for use at any one moment in combat. What is physically possible, efficient (read fast), and effective?

Offense

Theory of Attack

To successfully defeat an opponent you must accomplish three things:

1. Have your weapon free, oriented correctly, and on a clear path to the target.
2. Defeat the Outer Circle tools, the Inner Circle evasions/movements and strike the target.
3. Retrieve the weapon, avoiding entanglements, and recover an effective defensive posture.

Strategic Principles

1. Attack on the 45-degree angle as often as you do in the straight line: This includes: behind the shoulder blade, kidney, hamstring, back of the knee, Achilles tendon. From in front: the face, throat, diaphragm, groin, quadriceps, knee, and ankle, arch of the foot. All your weight is centered in a column running from the top of your head down through your groin. Moving your center from one fixed point is difficult because it tends to be slow: slow to get started, slow to stop. If an attack is made there, 50% of your body must move to get (completely) out of the way (if you get an attack slightly off the center and you move your torso the wrong direction, you have even farther to go). Angled attacks are harder to block than straight-line attacks. If you attempt to block, the attacking tool must clear your body (a thin slice, that almost missed, can open you up like a zip-lock bag, i.e., completely).
2. Attack an exterior target before finishing: Attacking the limbs reduces your opponent's ability to defend themselves. There is more risk because it requires more skill to hit these (relatively) smaller, moving targets and more time, which increases the risk of something happening to you. To defeat an opponent with greater reach, this strategy is indispensable.
3. Observe your opponent's defenses and attack a target that is unguarded. Always be aware that an opening can be an invitation/trick. Make allowances for that possibility any time you attack. (keep 60% of your concentration on defense even as you make an attack. Never fully commit your strength/weight to an attack.) A good attack should be light, fast and a bit of a surprise (Wow, that got through!).
4. Diagnose you opponent's focus/concentration and attack when they are "asleep."

Defense

Don't be afraid when you play with a stronger player. Fear is [your opponent's] strongest ally. -- Learn to Play Go, Volume III: The Dragon Style, by Janice Kim (1 dan) and Jeong Soo-hyun (9 dan)

Theory of Defense

To successfully protect yourself, you must accomplish three things:

1. Develop an awareness/experience of correct distance so that you know if an opponent can reach you (even if they need to hop, step or lunge).
2. Develop footwork, falls, rolls and body evasions which allow you to avoid being hit, causes your opponent to miss, or puts you beyond their reach (while maintaining/recovering your balance).
3. Develop the timing, judgement, strength and skill to use every available blocking tool including: every part of the sword, your hands, arms, shoulders, feet and legs.

Chaining/Training

The best way to make your offense and defense work at peak efficiency is to chain the moves together; eventually causing them to overlap and combine in a single fluid motion.

One of the best lines to riposte (your attack directly on the heels of their attack) is the one your opponent just attacked on. Chances are their weapon is extended, so it cannot defend properly. Their defensive tools are probably moved out of the way to clear the physical apparatus so it can perform the mechanics of the attack. The idea here, is to shave your defense down to the point where the attack just barely misses. You counter-attack on (almost, there is some leeway here.) the same line, at the moment their attack is spent. This prevents a last minute draw cut from getting you and, if done correctly, you get that nice "hover effect" where your opponent is frozen in time.

You should train the components separately over time. Then bring them together until they become an automatic overlapping combination of moves. Here's an example:

• Your training partner feeds you a slow lunge to your chest.
• Begin by pivoting away from the attack and letting it go by, under your armpit. Make this motion smaller and smaller until your partner's point just misses you (it's important for your partner to do exactly the same attack every time. Don't let them start to "track you" because they know where you are going to go. That's counter productive at this stage. Later on, you can add the tracking as a spur to your off hand defense, which will be taking a greater roll in actual combat.)
• Add your left hand (or whatever secondary defensive tool you want) defense; we'll use palm block down, for convenience. At first, it's just there as an added safety. The technique won't hit you anyway, because you've already pivoted off the line.
• Begin to add your riposte, very slowly at first. Just get an idea of what it takes to reach your partner. It'll probably only take a thrust. As their lunge will be bringing them to you, a simple stop thrust should do the job.
• Get lazy with your evasive footwork. Begin your pivot later and later in the sequence, to where you have to block with the off hand to prevent yourself from getting skewered. Begin combining your riposte with the block until they happen almost simultaneously (try to run the shot back along their attacking arm, using the theory described above: most likely line open is the one they're using to attack with).

This may take several fighter practices and many repetitions to bear fruit, but it's worth it. After a while you will see this attack and simply react, getting the touch before you know you've done it. To build sophistication and control, try this at varying distances and angles. Try it with various opponents, of varying heights, reach, and skill levels (read speed).

Once you've gotten that variable under control, think about directing your riposte toward other targets that are available (to add these layers, you may need to slow the tempo to beginner level, and ask your partner to feed you specific attacks again). Eventually, you should be able to decide (as the sequence is happening) to thrust at another target or even abort the riposte entirely; say, if your opponent has charged in too close and a stop thrust would injure them or your equipment (hard to straighten out a 16 inch bend in your epee. Best to pull the shot and save your gear). I like to fold my arm in across my body and tuck the sword under the opposite armpit. This still gives me a reasonable amount blocking surface, with my forearm across my belly, ready to sweep up to protect my head or down to protect my groin. It's not perfect but it will serve, even if I only get a partial block or deflection. I'm not keen on moving my blade out and away from my side (although I've done it). It exposes too much of my chest and face to feel comfortable.

If you've gotten all that under control (takes about six months) you can think about using a draw cut across (from your left to right, if you're right handed) their body, legs or arm as your sword is now perfectly chambered to do so (mind your furniture as you begin. You may need to widen the gap between you two before starting the cut, for safety's sake).

Our Theory Of Combat presupposes this: It's safest to believe that our opponents know as much, are as fast, and train as hard as we do. We know from experience that we must defeat the outer tools (the blades, bucklers, scabbards and cloaks we face). We then must defeat the inner tools (in the form of wrists, forearms, elbows and shoulders) and then the bodily evasions (in the form of twists, leaning, ducking, skipping and other footwork) that may prevent us from stabbing or cutting our opponents.

To accomplish this we have a number of tools at our disposal:

• We can use our own footwork to bring us to a place and time where they do not expect us.
• We can attack their weapons themselves: disarm, manage, trap, lock and bind. This gives us control and knowledge of where their weapons are and what they can (and more importantly cannot) do.
• We can use their own body mechanics, balance, limbs against them; to protect us, camouflage our attack or intentions. We can use our own body mechanics for the same purposes. We can use our weapons in all their aspects to cut, thrust, bind and block, allowing us to attack where we want, when we want.
• We can use our minds to analyze our opponents for mental blind spots, technical weaknesses and physical limitations. We can formulate strategies and tactics to defeat them.

After we have made the touch, we want to get in the habit of maintaining our defense, staying on guard, until the danger from a last minute attack has passed. Nothing spells "embarrassed" like getting nailed by an opponent you thought you got; who either ignores or was unaware of the technique you felt was good, and should have gotten them. This is our theory in a nutshell (a very large, ungainly, wordy nutshell, to be sure. But it's the best we can do given the circumstances.)

Treat each section as a single focus seminar on that topic. It's obvious to every sword fighter that these topics are intertwined. They overlap and many events occur simultaneously. The actuality of a duel is very different from the printed word, or even the drills and training we offer. Synthesis will come, but examination must begin with isolation.

We are going to isolate aspects of sword fighting and examine them in a seminar setting. Each section tries to concentrate on one aspect of sword fighting. We want to highlight principles and processes that we have found successful. We are going to attempt to clarify principles we have discovered through experience. All of this effort will fail; will fail absolutely, without the reader going out and gaining their own practical experience and knowledge base.

If you read a section and apply it diligently to your training, it may still take you years to reach that point where a little light bulb goes on over your mask and you say to yourself, "Oh, I get it. That's what that means!" After all, it took us years and lots of familiarity to get to the point where we felt we could even articulate this stuff. How much time will it take for you to comprehend? Nobody knows, including you.

Take each section as an independent entity. Build a composite picture as you go. Much of this information is abstract, not concrete. To spend time on nuts and bolts like: "This is a sword, here's where you block. Here is a block, do it like this. Here is a thrust, bend your knee..." is going to bog us down until we drown in a sea of minutia.

Fundamentals are universal in concept, and unique in practice. Your body, arms, legs, prior injuries, etc. all impact how you do your fundamentals. This is how different styles of Karate were developed. Big guys do it this way. Little guys do it that way. Style is about an individual interpretation of an art that becomes institutionalized (mostly by a particular master's students after they, the living master, has died,) and develops adherents. That's all it is, too. There is no one way to do any martial art including sword fighting. The only litmus we ask you to apply is this: Is this effective for me? If the answer is yes, develop it and add it to your own personal style. If the answer is no, discard it, but only after you've thoroughly tested it for merit and found none.

Enough, let's move on to some of these hated basics; the nuts and bolts I said we wouldn't pursue (you gotta start somewhere. We've found some misconceptions that are rooted all the way down in fundamental practice, so we're going to have to give you some, just to let you know where we are coming from).