Tourney training workshops at Order of the Boar

[JohnF]

This post is a fork from the discussion in the 'An National Open
Tournament. Who'd be interested?'. http://www.gatheringdarkness.co.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2653&start=105&sid=5cce44efc73b8a311e6bfad6451bdba0
I've created it to specifically discuss the training workshops that Callum is
looking at running.

[JohnF]

The Red Ravens have people interested. I had a chat with Sef, Justin
(Terme), and William last night. January would suit us. They're wanting to
know about dates. We'll do car pooling at our end.

[Callum]

We were looking at January for a workshop so that suits me.

Given the holiday break, we are looking at the second half of January. I am thinking the third or forth weekend. Any preferences?

[mikronn]

Wellington Anniversary is the 23rd Jan so maybe that weekend? Gives people slightly more time if they are local

cheers

mike

[JohnF]

I'm flexible. I'll find out which days are open to the other interested Ravens on Sunday.

Callum, some questions on dagger vs dagger events:-

Can you expand on what you consider to be a successful point attack?
Is one thrust enough, or are a series of thrusts required?
If a fighter is disarmed, can they continue unarmed until they have been
stabbed?
What are the dimensions of the arena?
What type of barriers will there be?
Is there a time limit?
How will the judge conduct each match?
What are the valid target areas?
Which areas are illegal?

[conal]

Callum,

I think you'll agree Ravens still engage with earnest.

You could take your time with these answers, as I'll be one of the guys on the receiving end of the calibration sparring. >:-]

Must finish gauntlets,
Must finish gauntlets,
Must finish gauntlets,

ta.

[Callum]

Hi Conal and John,

Well the Ravens have always been a big part of our events - even back in the old pre-Harcourt Park days of the Upper Hutt Summer Carnivals so it is great that they are interested in being a significant part of our wider foot tourney format.

I can't really answer all your questions, John, as we are still doing a lot of "test" sparring and work on the format ourselves. So we have none of the fine details finalised yet. In fact I don't plan to really finalise anything until after the first workshop anyway as I want other people's input into the final format. That's one of the reasons why I'm going to be running a series of workshops between now and the next Harcourt Park.

Here are my thoughts on your questions:

In our" test sparring" we need a point attack that visibly moves the opponent to score. But the level of force in actual tourney combat is something I would like to explore at the workshop. But a single hit will score as will the first scoring hit in a series of attacks.

In our test sparring we are also pretty much allowing any point attack that lands solidly on any part of the body and head along with any attacks to parts of the limbs that would cause severe damage to that limb to score (e.g. inside of the joints for example). But again the final target areas to be finalised at the workshop.

If you are disarmed and if your opponent does not score any of our other criteria to win the bout then the disarmed party may continue until either party achieves one of the criteria to win the bout. Fiore and other fight masters all had techniques for unarmed vs. armed.

John's other questions are still being worked through. However each bout no more than probably 2 minutes. So if neither party wins inside of 2 minutes then the bout is a draw. We are looking at a Head Marshal and two assistant marshals. Given that in the heat of combat people can't often hear verbal commands it will be the assistant marshal's job to break the fight up. In Belgium they had 2 marshals with white quarterstaffs who used them to impose between the combats or lever them apart and it worked really well. Even if you can't hear a command seeing a white quarterstaff in front of you should be pretty obvious!

I am also looking at building a portable wooden octagonal arena this summer which will be at least 6 meters across all sides, most likely 8.

Hope this helps althuogh nothing is final.

Looks like Wellington anniverary weekend it is then. Do people who are travelling from outside of the Wellington region just want to come down for a 4 hour workshop or do you want us to expand it? If so what else would you like covered?

[JohnF]

Hi Callum,

Anniversary weekend works for me. I haven't touched base with some of
the Ravens about which dates woud suit them. Pick a date, we'll have a
enough to make it worthwhile to car pool. The Sunday would suit most
Ravens as that is our usual training day.

As a club the Ravens have a strong tournament focus. Doing a lot of
fighting would have the widest appeal. New opponents and different
training methods will be interesting as well. Practise marshalling is
important, it'll help with understanding what is expected by the judge.

Personally I'm quite interested in how Order of the Boar interpret and
teach from the books of the ancient masters. The 4 hour suggested time
frame sounds good, it'd make for an eight hour day including travelling.

The last couple of trainings I've worked through a few set pieces from
Jason Vail's "Medieval and Renaissance Dagger Combat". This book is a
synthesis of Fiore, Talhoffer, Vadi, Galdiatoria, Marrozzo, Cynner,
Wallerstein, Durer, Meyer, SIlver, and Kal interpretations. It seems like a
fair starting point before going to a a translation of the original
documents. We've found that our sparring rules made it difficult to apply
the ancient techniques. So we made a few changes that helped.

Normally we spar with match being won on cut or a thrust. We use an
honour system where each fighter calls their own blows. A poor shot can
be ignored. Off limit areas in include the head, neck, and hands. What
tends to happen is that successful fighters fight with the hands out in front
and favour cuts.

We changed the rules by making forearm attacks illegal, making thrusts
the only valid attack, requiring three thrusts to win a match. We found
that we were using more of the masters' techniques. At wide distance the
hands were held closer to the body. We did have issues with amount of
force. The change in distance and favouring thrusts led to some overly
heavy blows. No injuries though.

Our rational on ignoring cuts was based on a experiment Sef and I did
with a sharp kitchen knife. We found that we couldn't cut through padded
GDFB chausses. We infer that we wouldn't be able to cut a gambie either.

Requiring multiple stabs has two reasons. One, a rondel can penetrate
mail, but is unlikely to split the links and go all the way in. To do that is
easiest with a stationary enemy, and an overhead blow with an icepick
grip. Two, court and newspaper evidence quoted by Vail suggest that it
was common to survive multiple stabs long enough to kill an enemy.

Some techniques I found hard to do. They're the ones involving gripping
my opponents arms. I have small hands, and my gloves and their gambie
are enough to make it hard to get a good grip. Also, not being able to
strike the head, or neck, means choosing lesser targets.

Regards,
John

[Callum]

Hi John,

Thank you for your feedback.

Within our own dagger on dagger sparring we also only score point attacks for the same reason. The rondel daggers that we use are so designed to pierce through the joints of armour and many did not have sharp edges because of this.

We are more liberal in our target areas targeting the entire torso, neck and head, upper limbs as well as the elbow joints and palms of the hand.

We also allow grappling, joint locks and throws. We are still undecided on kicks and punches. When I disarmed Callum Junior (14) last Saturday he promptly punched me in the face which is a good reaction but not the sort of reaction you want in public or sparring somebody you don't know. So we will most likely not allow unarmed strikes unless most people want them to be included.

Appreciate the comments on how to judge a good hit. We are using a variety of training rondels including rolled up paper (allows us to drill sparring without any protective gear) and wooden waster rondels with a rubber tip. We can put chalk on the end of the rubber tip and allow any hit that leaves a chalk mark to score. Last week we also discussed using modified shortend fencing foil blades with a rubber tip and these need to show a distortion (bend) on impact to score. I will be obtaining a couple of foils to modify and test prior to the workshop.

I might was well finalise the workshop details while I am here too.

The workshop will be on Sunday January 22nd commencing at 10 AM and finishing at 3 PM (one hour lunch break at 12 and the 3 PM finish allows us to have a few beers afterwards). The venue will be the Upper Hutt Martial Arts Academy and the workshop cost $25. We may also limit the numbers to 20 and if there is an overflow schedule another seminar around the same time.

[allfiredup]

Looking forward to it - just have a thought for those who are looking to travel,

$25 plus petrol is very expensive for 4 hours.

Im very keen to help support this. Could we make it a longer workshop?

Also - does it include 2 handed sword and poleaxe as well as dagger?

Plus min kit requirements or Max kit requirements?

thanks

Justin

[Callum]

Hi Justin,

$25 is for facility use and works out at $6.25 an hour. It is very cheap relative to similar (martial arts) events.

I am happy to make it run for more than 4 hours but the feed back so far is for just a day seminar which after you add travel means that 4 hours is about as much time as we have. My experience with running and attending similar workshops is that 4 hours is about as much as most people can handle during a day as we plan to run through a lot in the 4 hours anyway.

We will also be providing some training gear (fencing masks and training weapons) so all you need to being is guantlets and soft kit (e.g. gambeson). Note that the facility has martial arts training mats which don't take to full metal armour or steel weapons that well.

This workshop will only over dagger on dagger. Throughout 2012 we will also run other workshops on sword and buckler, long sword and possibly poll axe.

[Colin]

I could possibly look at running something further in the day; especially for out of towners. Be warned: my training hall can only handle eight people. _Or_ you could risk training outside in a park which would make it weather dependent.

My focus would be slightly different as well: I would focus on Western martial arts or at least my interpretation of it without regard to a tournament format.

[Callum]

I have created a FaceBook page for the workshop:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=270695522966690&context=create

[Callum]

Just to remind people of this weekend's dagger tournament workshop. I have moved the start time to 11 AM on Saturday with an expected fiinish time of 3 PM.

[mikronn]

A big thanks to Callum for today - the organiser rarely gets the appreciation.

Those who attended certainly gained some new skills - I know I did. It was also great to meet/catch up with many of the practitioners again and swap a few stories.

regards

mike