Class led by John. Kihon, ippon kumite, basai x 10+, teki x 10+
Category: Uncategorized
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I caught the first half of a judging workshop. The focus was on longpoint rules, with side nights about PDX longsword rules. Some key points were the use of a gated point system going: touch, target, quality, control. A touch will pause/stop the match but is worth zero points. Targets worth points are only head and body. Included is a system of recognizing opponent followup attacks that reduce or negate victory points. In general, I was fairly happy with the system though it lacks a few targets that I consider good but they consider either too dangerous to the opponent or too open to counter-attack or mutual blows.
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Class led by John. Stretch and kihon with a focus on blocks with reverse punch counter and a few other combinations. etc
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Class led by Brent. Standard Jog+ warmup, then I did the agility ladder with the experienced students while Brent was working on stance with the newer students. Agility ladder is a 20-ish foot webbing and plastic rung ladder spread on the floor that we pass over in various stepping and hopping patterns. We progressed through ear game, three rounds with the third holding swords and being mindful of distance (measure), into a measure and evasion drill (permitted one cut which opponent may attempt to evade and make one counter cut), into cutting drills practicing a short-up/long-up/long-down and a short-scorpion/long-down pattern.
We then reviewed the primary lesson of the night, using zornhaus to counter oberhaus. As the opponent cuts on the diagonal from their shoulder toward your neck (oberhaus), you counter cut placing your blade on an upward slanting line directed at your opponents face while switching stance (triangle stepping) off the line of attack. You are then free to thrust their head or throat before they react.
We practiced this for a while, then formed a few pits where the experienced did some sparring and the newer, myself included, worked a bit more on this technique. -
Class led by Brent. Warmed up with "Stance Tag", then he took the newer students through the basic stance drills (advance and retreat in left stance, then right, then strafing in left, and then strafing in right, then some stance switching and zig zag patterns). Next was the ear game, then basic cutting drilling, this time doing the X cut pattern, an under/over pattern, and a right/left temple pattern. Following this was the We moved into the bind drill of keeping the swords engaged and seeking an advantage. The main technique study today was a review of the montague followed by an introduction to a counter for montague. After working through those for a bit, the newer folks want back to the contact drilling while the upper folks sparred. Today I did everything with borrowed steel feder.
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Class led by Merv. Stretch followed by 51 Basai. That was it. Some by count, some slow, some normal, but 51 basai total with a brief discussion of application of some of the moves at the end of class.
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Attended Brent's class, Indes Western Martial Arts. Basic cardio warm up followed Brent taking myself and a couple other new folks through some basic stance and movement work. We then did a partner movement drill, named "the ear game" because you're trying to reposition to either side of your opponent, practincing lateral movement and distancing. Boston then took us new folks over the basic X or "infinite" cut (similar to WCoS neck cut, but shorter, coming from the shoulder, and less snap so as to lead with a more guarded hand position). They use steel straight away for much of their drilling, so I was using my 40" overall bastard sword most of the night, starting with this cutting. We then moved into another partner drill where you maintain blade contact with your opponents weapon and attempt to manuever to achieve and keep the line on your opponent.
Brent then introduced the night's primary lesson, the montague. The move involves countering your opponents direct line on your face by rotating your sword CW as you deflect left slightly, keeping your tip up enough to maintain engagement and control of your opponents blade, then rotate or lever the blade down to catch your opponent's blade in your back guard and drop your point into a thrust to either the mid section or the upper leg (inner thigh, I should think).
After practicing the move for a while, the class seperated into those that were geared for full sparring and those of us that weren't where we continued with the contact drill. -
Class led by Merv. Stretch and high repetition kihon, with focus on some of the problem areas that the seniors had noted in last weeks grading. Finished with three Heian Nidan and three Heian Yodan.
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Tonight I observed the Indes Western Martial Arts class, a school of long sword combat. They have a more regimented format than Swordguild, though are otherwise fairly similar, as might be expected of two HEMA affiliated schools. I spoke with the main instructor for a bit after class and have decided to give his class a go.
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I attended a class with Portland Swordguild, a group that studies HEMA. The head instructor, Jason, gave me a 15 minute orientation on the basics (four guard positions, some offensive defense perspective, some attack lines) and did a little bit of saber-like stick fighting (some kind of bamboo or rattan like stick, approximately a yard in length, with a leather cup hand guard at one end, with us wearing fencing masks, and sports protective gloves and elbows). The standard class format is to start with a 15 minutes study session focusing on a single technique, then break off into sparring pairs to for the remainder of the time, learning by doing and having the more experienced critiquing the less experienced as they spar. I think they have some good concepts and ideas that have been pulled from the historical texts, but this is the same style of learning I have observed in some previous groups (particularly the couple SCA groups I've visited) and I feel it is not beneficial for beginners. However, as I am not a beginner with the sword and martial arts in general, I may return myself at least on occasion if they are open to me using a better helmet (I despise fencing masks) and to me possibly questioning things they wouldn't normally question.
Additionally, Jason suggested that Indes may be a better fit if I'm looking for more structure. -
Class led by Merv. Stretch and then test prep class (because test next week). Kihon, ippon kumite, sanbon kumite, taikyoko shodan, favorite kata (heian godan), rank kata (basai). Finished with personal study on our kata (heian godan and basai for me).
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Class led by John. Stretch and kihon. A little bit of focus on chaining maegeri/mwashigeri, maegeri/yokogeri kokome, and gyakuzuki/gyakuzuki/maegeri. Several times through Heian Yodan with some discusion of possible practicle applications of the techniques. A few times or so through Enpi.
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Class led by Fred. I forgot that Wednesday class still starts at 6:30 (not 7 like Mondays) so I was late. Joined in at tail end of kihon (yokogeri kokome, mikazukigeri, and fumikomi). We then worked on uraken, first solo, then with partners with shields, then ippon kumite. Next was some light jiyu kumite, and we finished with 10 Heian Yodan.
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Class led by Merv. Stretch followed by 100 yoko geri kokome (side thrust kicks), then 100 uraken yoko geri kokome combos. We then roated through several partners of slow, controlled jiyu kumite, and we finished with 10 or so Enpi.
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Class led by Merv (I led stretch warm up). We went through nidan kihon to start with and then spent most the rest of the class on jiyu kumite at roughly 75% speed, give or take. We finished with looking at a few of the self defense applications or bunkai for heian sandan techniques.
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Class led by Merv. He asked me to lead warm up, first, and then we moved into kihon, once down and back for each technique (i.e. 20 reps). We then went once through all the heian kata, teki, basai, and kanku (which I need to review and practice). Next was a few rounds of ippon kumite, sanbon kumite, and jiyu kumite. We then returned to another 20 times through heian sandon to finish off class.
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Class led by Merv (at his invitation, I led stretch). The focus was on some of the technique needed for the shodan test. We started with an extended look at jyu ippon kumite. As the attacker, we worked on a good oitsuki attack including a leaping and shuffle-to-leaping distance closer emphasising a strong forward knee lift. As defender, we worked on slipping the attack with mai te counter or block the attack and gyaku tsuki counter. We next looked at jyu kumite technique, working on Merv's favorite "fence post" guard and driving in with mai te, gyaku tsuki (with the lead hand back in fence post position), and later added a round punch as a third technique.
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Class led by Blaine. Stretch followed by two times of each Heian kata, then a focus session on Heian Nidan ending with 10 more times on it. We then worked on some attack combos and finished with a small mock jiyu kumite tournament (in prep for nisei week, I think).
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Class led by Merv. I led the stretch. We then worked on oizuki, followed by a focus on kokutsodachi (back stance) and making a minimal shift offline when defending and countering.
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I visited with Sal today and he gave me a tour of his dojo space, then we worked through our full requirements. Unfortunately, I forgot my steel, so I had to borrow a boken. During our session, he made note of a few upates that have come up in his working with Head Kaiden Gad.
* The I Move – the technique is explicitly a full chop now in order to be applied against any target (I pointed out that it is still important to tip the blade first during the pull back to make it faster).
* Kata Ich – the forward moving blocks are right neck, left neck, right leg (made simply sweeping down from the left neck block).
* Kata Ni – the final techniques are dragons tail followed by the illusion, where the illusion's head feignt is made as we turn the 180 about face.Additional notes:
* Tradition – he noted that the (relatively) new clearing technique at the end is as we create distance and should not actually target the uke where they stand.
* I would like to discuss the vertical draw cut with the head kaiden further.It was a good session, and good to see his training space for the Redding dojo.