SG1: Schola Gladiatoria London

[admin]

A full classroom last night, with several regulars absent but an influx of beginners.
We covered a selection of sabre drills as described above.
If we get more people in future weeks then the Free Scholars are going to be on teaching/assisting duties only for session 1, but I'll make sure session 2 is more structured (and end session 1 at 9pm sharp).
Next week is longsword.

[admin]

I'm going to lay off the regular messages for a bit, as we are sticking to alternating between sabre and longsword from week to week, along the lines detailed above.

Class size has been really consistently good for the last few weeks, with lots of new people and a good retention rate. The room is basically full, but that's not a problem because if we are full then the Free Scholars now go on assisting duties.

People's sabre has really come on fast and I expect great results - it's interesting to note that some people are naturally better at either longsword or sabre, so having the two weapons gives more people a chance to shine. I also feel that it's keeping things more varied and exciting.

On the news front, it looks like a good handful of us will be invading Dijon this year.
And congratulations to Tim Gallagher, our long-distance scout, for winning the longsword tournament at SWASH this last weekend.

[admin]

Yesterday's session was slightly messed up by a car accident (I wasn't involved) which resulted in it taking me 3 hours to get to London! Thanks to the students for waiting - eventually we managed to cram a speeded-up longsword session in.
Maybe next week we'll do something different, like dagger. Votes welcome

[Lemonaid]

umm.. I add my vote for.. SABER!!

I'm *really* enjoying alternating weeks of Fiore and Waite.
All those drills we do for saber are awesome, finding them absolutely key for my improving: lots of drilling, on a regular basis.

[admin]

Okay sabre it is
(note British sabre, not American saber ).

I would like to have a dagger session soon, and I would also like to get a guest instructor over to do some walking cane and bartitsu.

[Lemonaid]

Splendid!
(Did wonder about sabre/saber..must think of a suitable mnemonic ..hmm.. )

[craftyfighter]

Splendid!
(Did wonder about sabre/saber..must think of a suitable mnemonic ..hmm.. )

It's quite easy actually, just remember:
Sabre = Correct
Saber = Scum sucking colonial traitors who murder the Queen's English.

Simple really.

[KeithFarrell]

Splendid!
(Did wonder about sabre/saber..must think of a suitable mnemonic ..hmm.. )

It's quite easy actually, just remember:
Sabre = Correct
Saber = Scum sucking colonial traitors who murder the Queen's English.

Simple really.

Very simple! Also, perhaps a mnemonic that might help would be sabRE where the RE is Real English

[craftyfighter]

Agreed.

[Lemonaid]

Lol cheers lads, the best I'd gotten was as far as:

"Sabre" as in "sabreur" - and we're 'closer' to the french than the yanks and .. erm .. ..

..nahhhh! -RE for "Real English" it is!!

[admin]

A full class last night, with a handful of new beginners.
Due to the number of new people and some missing regulars we stuck to basics of gioco largo.

The sparring session concentrated on longsword with a running winner-stays-on 3-hit tournament (3 doubles leading to mutual 'death'). Generally the level is improving though we suffered from an unusually high number of double hits last night, which we must eradicate!

Next week, sabre.

[admin]

After missing a week training resumes this week with sabre. The regulars have made great leaps and bounds in their sabre fencing and the best of them could now take on sabre or backsword fencers from anywhere in the world. And yes, that is a challenge.

[Magnus Hagelberg]

noted. Will see you at Fightcamp.

[admin]

A busy class last night of 26 people and unusually we did a Fiore dagger class which everyone did really well at.
People continue to improve in sparring.

Next week, longsword.

[admin]

Great longsword session this week - a number of new people and relative beginners present, with lots of quick learning and improvement. But the highlight for me was the freeplay session for the more experienced students. We tried a new format inspired by some of the guidelines set out by Anders Linnard of GFHS in his post on the general martial arts forum here and I think it went really really well. We've already learned some lessons and noted some points we can improve and will be slightly changing the format next week with sabre.

[admin]

Over 30 people last night and we were rather cramped to say the least! If we have similar numbers next week then we will change the format of the class slightly, with Free Scholars leading small groups.

Our new sparring format experiment continues. The sparring itself is, in my opinion, improving noticeably in most cases. The judging still needs work as we need to be giving more explicit reporting and feedback to the fighters. I hope to be able to spend more time on this aspect next week, possibly running only one fighting area at a time rather than two.

Next week, longsword!

[admin]

Longsword last night and over 30 people again. We focussed on attacking, based on making two attacks in succession. First staying at distance and then progressively moving closer into gioco stretto. We'll do that some more, as people picked it up quickly and improved noticeably.
The advanced session featured first some freeplay and then a mini-tournament with hands not being counted, doubles resulting in double-elimination and one-hit kills - winner stays on. Special mentions to Martin W for *almost* getting a pommel on, Arash for doing a text book perfect step offline and countercut to the head against an active opponent and Tenniel for staying on for the greatest number of fights (5).

Next week, sabre.

[violet]

We focussed on attacking, based on making two attacks in succession. First staying at distance and then progressively moving closer into gioco stretto.

As a beginner (only about 4/5 longsword sessions) that format really worked for me. I think especially when the hall's very full I've had a tendency to go in too close and find a second attack a bit tricky as a result. This week's session necessitated thinking about distance and positioning in a way I hadn't quite done before. A few things really clicked into place.

[admin]

Awesome, glad it worked! Thanks for the feedback and welcome to the forum .

[admin]

Another busy night at class last night.
The first session again looked at attacking with the longsword, entering into distance with an initial attack and immediately following it with another whilst either maintaining distance, moving slightly closer or moving a lot closer. This then built into the defender using two defences and the attacker using three attacks, and finally moving into distance and out again, with a number of attacks.
The second session was free sparring, mostly with longsword, scored and with doubles penalised. Then a few rounds of melee games to finish off.
Special mention goes to Simon for thrusting everyone and everything and to Ty and Dan for using the sparring time to pressure test some fixed drills.