Drills, Drills, Drills - Newbie to Melee Drills For Instructors And Practitioners

Drills, Drills, Drills: Newbie to Melee Drills For Instructors And Practitioners

Don Malcolm Bowman

Please note - over the years, I have had some excellent instructors. I'd just like to acknowledge the following for their contributions to this class: Algirdas Wolthus, Don Lyev Davidovitch, Lord John Michael Thorpe (Dominion of Myrkfaelinn - Kingdom of Aethelmearc back when it was still a Principality)Don Duncan Kieran, Mistress Alys Mac an Toisich, Don Armand de la Poor - and certainly others I am forgetting who showed me drills along the way.

Some of the below will be covered in the class - some not. These instructions should allow for any rapier combatant to practice these drills.

Footwork Drills

Basic footwork

It has to begin somewhere. All too often, we neglect drilling in the extreme basics - or just do not know the best way to go about it. These are good drills to go over again and again. Advance, retreat - but keep in mind these key things: 1. Don't lean when you move. 2. Pick up each foot - don't drag either. 3. Speed is not necessary - slowly build muscle memory, which is the key to drills. This is about CORRECT footwork, not quick footwork.

Intermediate footwork

Add to the above cross-overs (or pass-forward pass-backward). Add circling and advance/retreat right/left. For both of these, left foot first on left circle/advance/retreat, right foot first on right circle/advance/retreat.

Advanced footwork

Add lunges - but make sure you do them right! The knee should NEVER be over the foot, and the extension of the blade comes before the body movement. Add reverse lunges, stop-thrusts, redoubles, and if you want to get REALLY fancy (and this is dependent on the angle of basic training you are taking - thus HIGHLY subjective) try adjusting blade position with regards to all movement (i.e. advance in 4, lunge in 3, recover in 2, that sort of thing). Not all people learn the parrys with the same numbers corresponding to them - which is the complicated part of this aspect. Different schools/time periods/and other factors can adjust the nature of advanced footwork techniques in far more ways than I can or should get into here.

Bladework Drills

First Blade drill

It is my personal belief that this should be the FIRST drill a student should do, once you put a blade in their hand. Put a piece of duct tape on a wall, door, or pell you can abuse - no more than 2" x 2". Place said piece of tape at chest level. Take an en guard stance. Full extension to the tape. I mean FULL extension, arm only - no leaning! Recover arm. Attack tape, extension without leaning only. No guided missile (guided missile - i.e. the point circles in until it hits the target before full extension is reached) - straight in. You might miss from time to time - but thats ok, this is a point control drill! Don't worry about speed - you will get faster as you build the muscle memory.

This drill teaches the following:

Point control. You can learn to hit a 2" piece of tape - and the target area of your opponent is FAR larger.
Calibration. If you are putting a whopping bend in the blade or it's a loud impact, you are hitting too hard. Note - This drill is often done with tennis or golf balls on string. I prefer walls - harder, less give, they reveal if you are over-doing your calibration. The counter argument is that the tennis ball gives you more of a moving target - but I think its still not a very realistic target, when you get right down to it.
Distance. You learn from this how far your extension is, which gets you more familiar with your own distance.

Second Blade Drill

With the same tape: Set up the tape as above. Establish full extension distance. Reverse lunge. Recover back. Yup, you should be out of range to just extend to reach the tape. Now you need to lunge to do so. This drill sets up the same three items as above, but from a distance (and you will impact differently from a lunge than from an extension - and you will learn from how far out you CAN hit someone.)

Third Blade Drill

Same tape - advance, retreat, and CIRCLE tape - but never let your point drift as you move. You learn how to maintain contact with a single target (and a small one) as you move. Also, if you DO wish to do the extension to hit the tape, you can ONLY extend from an off angle - never from straight on. This helps teach you to think in terms of fighting in the round.

Fourth Blade Drill - for case

Same piece of tape, establish the full extension distance. Extend with the right blade. THEN extend with the left. Yup, you will need to shift your body to do so - but you learn extension and overall movement with a pair of weapons that way. :-) Suggest also this drill be done from a reverse stance - get a sense of full extension with the off-hand weapon.

All of these drills have the same goal - teaching calibration, point control, and extension distance. And all of these can be done in private. Just be sure, before you start doing these drills regularly, that you are doing them correctly.

Multiple-person drills

Thirty Second Drill

You need a pair of fencers, and a third person with a stopwatch, or watch with a second hand. Have the two fencers take an en-guarde facing one-another, with or without blades (either way, this is a good masks-off drill). Give them a 5 second count down, then a "begin" or "go" or some such. Have one lead, the other respond - and the goal is to keep distance. The leader advances, retreats, circles, does whatever he/she can do to make their opponent step out of distance, too far apart or too close. At the end of thirty seconds, call a hold. The fencers get a 25 second break. Count down the last 5 seconds once again - and start them at it, switching the leader/follower rolls. Repeat as often as you feel will be useful and not over-boring for your fencers, thirty seconds on, thirty seconds off. This drill combines some endurance with distance maintenance.

Parry/Riposte Drills

These drills are going to be subjective in many respects. Completely dependent on the schooling the fencers have learned (French vs Italian vs Spanish vs Sport fencing vs Random Other Fencing School). Basically, you need your fencers to face one another, approximately at a distance where their blades, if in contact, will be foible to foible. One fencer will make an extension attack - the other will parry, then riposte. And they should work outside parries (i.e. six, three, two, eight) with a riposte, as well as inside parries (i.e. four, five, seven, one) with a riposte. Make sure each participant gets to do this.

Melee Drills

Melee is seldom a static situation. You are going to find that one of the biggest issues in melee combat is a combination of communication, and breaking the single-combat mentality. This is one drill that does a little of both.

Two on Two Drill

Two fencers vs two fencers. They face off pair against pair (simulating the potential of a line battle - which will happen, from time to time), single only (at least initially). The trick is that you CANNOT attack the person directly across from you - you can only attack on the angle, cross-shot. You CAN, however, contact/foul/bind the blade of the person across from you - you just can't make contact with them. This encourages communication between the pairs - as well as honing observation (i.e. hey, his blade is bound - now is the time to strike!)

This drill can done four on four, even up to five on five, but this drill really needs to be done with only single, or else with the weapons forms matching throughout. Otherwise, it ceases to be an educational drill, and becomes more of a free-for-all.

This is just a sampling of drills available to us. And variations of all of the above can certainly be made.

If you have questions, need suggestions, or even find ways to improve upon these drills, contact me - author@rapier.eastkingdom.org

This is the recognized Web Page for the East Kingdom Marshal of Fence, of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. The maintainer of this page is Jost. It is not a corporate publication of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc., and does not delineate SCA policies. In cases of conflict with printed versions of material presented on this page or its links, the dispute will be decided in favor of the printed version.