Learning swordplay is different for everyone.

How Noticing Your Students Outside Class Can Make a Profound Difference

Canoeing is one of the first physical activities I remember being captured by. I love the water, and there was something powerful and graceful about navigating a craft with a simple flat piece of wood through the chaotic eddies and currents of a river or inlet. This interest may never have taken hold if it…

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Getting the Point to your Opponent

Swordplay from the Ground: The Four Thrusts of the Sword The knight's sword was not just a cutting weapon.  A well-aimed thrust delivered with the impulsion of a moving horse was a deadly combat technique.  It was also an effective attack from the ground. There are four basic types of thrust, defined by the orientation…

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Shoulder to Wrist: three types of cut

Swordplay from the Ground: Wrist, Elbow & Shoulder Cuts Not only are there eight lines on which to cut, there are three places from which to cut, wrist, shoulder and elbow.  For the Green Spur you are required to demonstrate all three types with the sword in one hand, and wrist and elbow cuts with…

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Fight Yourself

Victim control. It is an essential element of stage combat, but often misunderstood, and more often performed badly. It means that when there is physical contact between two actors, the apparent victim is in charge. This principle applies to pushes, pulls, grabs, strangulation, hair pulls, and most falls and throws. Tyler Durdan Take a lesson…

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Cutting down (and up, and across)

Swordplay from the Ground: The Eight Cuts In the last three posts I've covered posture, movement and turns of the body, with or without a sword in hand.  Now we'll turn our attention to the sword and look at cutting and thrusting in the next few posts, beginning with the eight cutting lines.   Terminology…

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Taking a Turn

Swordplay from the Ground: Turns of the Body Last week's post on the Mounted Combat Green Spur Curriculum covered moving forward, back and side to side.  This week we're adding turns to menu.  Demonstrate the three turns of the body. 'Volta' is the Italian word for 'turn'.  (Dressage riders will recognize it from 'volte', which…

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Martial Movement

Swordplay from the Ground: Movement Last week I covered the essentials of a balance and martial stance.  Now we need to add mobility, without losing the effectiveness of that grounded posture, for the second item in the mounted combat checklist: Demonstrate methods of movement The movements we are looking for are: 1. Advance: take a…

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Taking a Stance

Last week I gave an overview of the Mounted Combat portion of the Green Spur program, which includes Swordplay from the Ground, Swordplay Knowledge and Mounted Swordplay Knowledge.  For the next little while we'll look at each of those checklist items in a bit more detail, starting with Swordplay from the Ground: Stance and Posture…

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Practicing forms 'correctly'

An important insight into practicing forms: how should they be practiced?   Assuming we're doing a form that involves cutting (eg. Marozzo's first assalto of sword and buckler) I recommend the following progression of study:   1) learn the cuts and how to do them smoothly 2) memorize the sequence 3) practice the transitions   Points…

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The Mounted Combat Curriculum - Green Spur

Like the Mastery program, we have five ranks within the Cavaliere program, denoted by Spurs: Green, Blue, Red, Silver and Gold.  To acquire each rank you need to be a triple threat, demonstrating your skill in Horsemanship, Riding and Mounted Combat. Now that we’ve covered all the things you need to know and be able…

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Safety in numbers

Or rather, safety with numbers, is this week's topic.  In other words, how do you 14.  Identify and maintain safe distance in group while riding and halted It's not enough to simply maintain the pace and direction of your own mount in relation to the fixed objects in the ring; you also need to be…

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Time to Stirrup Things!

Sorry, it's a dreadful pun, but I couldn't resist. The stirrup is arguably one of the most important inventions in the history of mounted warfare, and of riding in general.  The advent of the stirrup allowed a rider to mount more easily (making it feasible to wear heavier armour into battle), to rise out of…

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Freeing the sword hand

Up till now all discussing of the Riding 1 curriculum has implied the use of two hands on the reins.  This is because we ride with English tack in the Cavaliere program and teach English style riding (for the reasons for this see these previous posts: English or Western pt I and pt II).  However,…

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