SG6: Schola Gladiatoria Bradford

[Colin F.]

We now have a website!!!!
http://www.swordfightbradford.com/

Eternal thanks to Fran for designing it and to Oz for guiding us through setting it up

Snazzy!!! Nice work Fran!!!

[Cutlery Penguin]

Looking good!

[Fab]

Sweet !

[Wolfgang Ritter]

Nice! Have a good start and lots of enthusiasts!

[Paul B]

This wednesdays lesson had a small turn out, so I threw them right into some quite cerebral stuff. We covered the "zones of conflict" and appreciation of distance from ones opponent. Walking towards each other very slowly and feeling the change in tension as we approach (based on an excersise I learnt from Thomas Stoeppler).

Turns out that one of these zones co-incides very closely with Daves zufechten drill from fightcamp.

All in all, we spent a good hour and a half on this stuff, playing with the variations caused by stance and weapon - breaking down the idea of an absolute distance, and instead developing an instinctive appreciation of where the threat is.

We also covered the "unbendable arm", an old aikido trick that shows you why a slightly bent arm is better than full extension.

Then, as if they were not buzzing enough, some interpretation work. Mostly this was to learn 2 things: -
1 - you cant read a passage, interpret it and move on, it must be read in context with the rest of the manuscript
2- its bloody hard work, but fun.

[Wolfgang Ritter]

Congrats on the webside and your crowd looks already quite....dangerous....

[Paul B]

Cheers Wolfie. They are picking things up at an odd rate - waving a sword around in the air is not that intuitive for them, but rather complex bind work is second nature.

Tell them to do a false-edge oberhau follwed by a true edge oberhau with a step, and they look at me funny (as they should) tell them to hit each other and not die, and they end up producing a servicable zornhau and the first 4 plays from the goliath all on their own.

Gave them a little taster of armoured combat as well. Soon the tin suit will be brought to class

[Paul B]

http://www.swordfightbradford.com

now has a resources section where you can download manuscripts and work-in-progress translations

[janner]

Hi Paul,

Great ubershinai walk-through-talk-through. Now i can give your cross a decent home...

[Paul B]

Well tonight was rather good.

They had a dagger primer session. generic stuff, dont want to fill their heads with lignitzer before Colin comes over
Then there was fighting with longswords. Everybody has improved to some degree, which plases me no end.
Then there was lignitzers halfsword.

And the added treat of me in armour for 3 hours, I only kept the legs on for the pub though. Didnt work, I was completely outshined by the england croatio match.

4 guys turned up to check us out, and thanks to me screaming "kill!!!"" while Col gave them a nice chat about HEMA, they will all be coming next week.

Paul is pleased

[Colin F.]

thanks to me screaming "kill!!!"" while Col gave them a nice chat about HEMA, they will all be coming next week.

Good cop, bad cop. Works like a charm.

[admin]

Excellent stuff!
I'm getting a proper arming doublet in the next couple of weeks and having my breastplate and arms slightly re-engineered soon after that, so I'll start randomly wearing my armour at training just to get more used to it and make sure everything is working okay. I need to save up for a new bascinet though.
Let's organised an armoured weekend for the winter.

[Brewerkel]

Excellent stuff!
I'm getting a proper arming doublet in the next couple of weeks and having my breastplate and arms slightly re-engineered soon after that, so I'll start randomly wearing my armour at training just to get more used to it and make sure everything is working okay. I need to save up for a new bascinet though.
Let's organised an armoured weekend for the winter.

You guys could join us at ours' in March.

[Motley]

Go on, you know you want to...

I was only watching, but it was a good event this year.

[admin]

You guys could join us at ours' in March.

We need to train a bit more, so that we're sure of handing your arses to you, rather than just being mildly confident.

[Motley]

you have til March!...

and the snow will be melting by then too. At least down in Toronto.

[Brewerkel]

You guys could join us at ours' in March.

We need to train a bit more, so that we're sure of handing your arses to you, rather than just being mildly confident.

Do you forget that I've met you?

Bring it Gibbon Boy; I'll put you guys up if you make it over here.

[admin]

Okay old man, you're on.

[Brewerkel]

Okay old man, you're on.

I'll set up the long narrow bed for you.

Do get some riveted mail though. We stab each other, a lot.

[admin]

My mail is riveted.