the structure of a practice session

[Jeffrey Hull]

I like to do my solo workout first thing in the morning, before washing, tea, breakfast etc.

Talhoffer suggested the same for training -- well, except he placed the workout as second in line each morning after going to holy mass.

[Stewart Sackett]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned stretching. Stretching before a workout is, IMHO, the most valuable pre-workout preparation one can do.

Actually isn't stretching more a thing you should do after workout?

My Jiu-Jitsu instructor has always told me to warm-up & get my joints moving through their full range of motion before training but says to save deep stretches for after intensive exercise rather than before, so that's what I do.

[Axel Pettersson]

My Jiu-Jitsu instructor has always told me to warm-up & get my joints moving through their full range of motion before training but says to save deep stretches for after intensive exercise rather than before, so that's what I do.

Ditto.

here is the short video clip of our practice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiT4xcgmE58

/A

[JeremyDillon]

Holy crap, Axel. I was just revisiting this thread for tips and I caught that video for the first time. Quite a workout you guys have going, I really respect your commitment.

[Axel Pettersson]

Thank you Jeremy, we have a long way to go before we get up to the same level as other athletes, but we are working on it and we have "upped" our practice regime somewhat since that video (more burpees and post session grappling, uugh).

I think a lot of people in HEMA places just as much importance on physical fitness as we do, but in general i think this is way under emphasized in HEMA. To me the very idea that this is not an activity that requires physical fitness and conditioning is just ridiculous , and I think the people who claim there is no need for this kind of exercise don't realize that the regular fitness level of a 21th century westerner is probably far below that of the average 15th century ditto. It is not only that we should work out in order to improve our bodies, it is that we need to work out in order to reach our ancestors fitness level and so better understand under what conditions they practiced these arts. Especially as most of us only do this 3-5 evenings a week, not for several hours every day, how can we think that most of us start out on the same physical level as our ancestors?


IMO, we are much better served striving to match Ringecks fitness level than his fashion code.

[Gene Tausk]

IMO, we are much better served striving to match Ringecks fitness level than his fashion code.[/quote]


MAN, that is a GREAT quote. Entirely true!

Envious!

[Axel Pettersson]

Haha thanks man, feel free to steal it and use it whenever you want, the more the better.

Edit: if you want to make a WMA fashion statement, this is probably the best way to go about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clmHg00Xpis

[Matt Bryant]

There is a lot of good stuff on this thread.

I think a lot of people in HEMA places just as much importance on physical fitness as we do, but in general i think this is way under emphasized in HEMA. To me the very idea that this is not an activity that requires physical fitness and conditioning is just ridiculous... Especially as most of us only do this 3-5 evenings a week, not for several hours every day, how can we think that most of us start out on the same physical level as our ancestors?


IMO, we are much better served striving to match Ringecks fitness level than his fashion code.

Right on! That last quote is pure gold!

Here is my personal regimen:

A Day

• Warm up stretching
• T-progressions – 5 minutes
• Crunches
• 8 & 16 Cut Exercises – 10 times
• Pushups
• Cutting Exercises – 90 to 180 cuts total
• Twitch Drill

B Day

• Warm up stretching
• T-progressions – 5 minutes
• Crunches
• Footwork Exercises – 15 to 20 minutes
• Pushups
• Cutting Exercises - 90 to 180 cuts total
• Flouryshing

Here lately I have been rotating through 13 different weapon combinations and have had to make up/modify a lot of striking drills. Its a lot of fun and keeps me from getting bored with longsword. It also keeps me from being overly awkward with different weapons because of not handling them for months at a time.

Here is how we have been running classes since IG'07

A Day

• Touch Drill – 5 minutes
• T-progressions – 5 minutes
• 8/16 Cut Exercises – 5-10 times
• Cutting Exercises – 50 to 100 cuts total
• Counter Drills/Discussion of Techniques – 1 hour
• Free Play – Usually 1 to 1 ½ hours
• General Discussion Time – remainder of class

B Day

• Tiprogressions – 5 minutes
• Pressure Drill – 5 minutes
• Footwork Exercises – 10 minutes
• Cutting Exercises – 50 to 100 total cuts
• Flouryshing – At least 2 by every member for no less than 30 seconds
• Counter Drills/Discussion of Techniques – 1 hour
• Free Play – Usually 1 to 1 ½ hours
• General Discussion Time – remainder of class


It is definitely my philosophy that almost all exercise should be done with sword in hand (or whatever weapon). However, I have been questioning this method for the last week or two. The main factor that is causing me to consider doing other exercises is the fact that our ancestors did. We see depictions of them lifting stones, doing paired exercises, pelling (I don't pell as often as I should), and acrobatics. So apparently, they saw benefits to these workouts... its something to consider.

Also, we have adopted a larger emphasis on simplicity as well. During the technical part of our practice, we only work on three techniques/concepts. A year ago, we would do however many came to mind.

Axel, I really like the MMA club mentality. I think that is likely much much closer to the historical reality of a RMA practice than emphasizing chivalry, dressing up, or over-theorizing. Your increasing ability to actually applythe fighting concepts is a clear sign of heading in the right direction. You may learn less theory in a given amount of time, but your overall improvement is greatly facilitated. This shows in your recent youtube videos.

[I. Hartikainen]

Hi All,

while physical conditioning, strength etc. is important, I really think that we should not forget that we are still all relatively beginners in these arts.

When comparing to a MMA school, we have to remember that they practice for a sport (that is really tough and has a very high skill level) and many of the high level practitioners are also very skilled in their arts, that have been around for a long time, and have long experience in coaching, as well as competing.

For our arts, we have a lot of research still to do, and before committing to a more sport-oriented approach we should have the underlying arts relatively well understood. If you think about it historically, we can say that the masters of longsword in the 15th Century attained an understanding superior to us in their craft, and from this understanding the later, more sport-oriented styles were derived. We should aim for a similar approach in my opinion, and I think we can all agree that there is yet a lot of work to be done in interpreting the source literature.

Free playing still has it's place and purpose, but it is important to remember what it is that actually sets us apart: the source material and the culture where the weapons we practice were used. We (the WMA community as a whole) are unlikely to be a top-level MMA school, or unlikely to produce a champion MMA fighter trained in Ott's ringen simply because the level of training, interest of the potential athletes and so on is elsewhere. Maybe one day this will change, though, but before that is actually possible, the teachings off the masters need to be very deeply understood.

But I do love conditioning, and here is a link to my blog where you can see a form of whole-body workout that I do quite often. http://www.artedellearmi.net/articolo.asp?articolo=99

And remember that the conditioning should always aim to improve our ability in whatever we actually wish to do, in my opinion it shouldn't be an end to itself. For weapon styles conditioning is less important than for unarmed, but since in longsword, for example, they are both present, it helps to be in shape!


Yours,
Ilkka

[Axel Pettersson]

@Matt,

thanks for the ecouraging words Matt.

I am curious, what does the "Twitch Drill" consist of? You don't have to reveal it to me in any way (I completely understand if people don't want to give training secrets away just like that), but if you want to share it please do!

@Ilkka,

first:hi!

Earlier in this thread I wrote "I would like to see our club as a HEMA gym (like a boxing gym or MMA gym) but that is probably an incorrect description."

I will try to explain what I meant;

I did not do the comparison in regard to the sportive context of MMA or other combat sports, rather it was the emphasize on acquiring functional skills and training with a combative mindset to what you practice I was referring to. As I said, this comparison is useful (to me) but not complete (I do think on a personal level that competitions has its place in HEMA now as it did then, but we are not in this to compete, but foremost to learn, and as you say we are just taking the first baby steps still).

As an example (and to touch on your point that condition is an end to a mean, not an end in itself), we have looked a lot at how MMA practitioners practice and condition themselves, but we have not copied it straight off but instead put a lot of thought into what we have use for and then modified it to suit HEMA practice.

Again though, my point in my post above was that getting ourselves in the same physical shape as the men that practiced this art in earnest is an integral part in reviving these arts just as reading the manuscript, I am working from the hypothesis that they were in much better shape than us (in general).

I also enjoy reading your blog, what I read there and what I gathered from Scott Brown has really made me itching to visit the Hungarians.

cheers.

[Matt Bryant]

I am curious, what does the "Twitch Drill" consist of?

Others may use an exercise by the same name, but this is something I came up with that I call twitch drill:
First, I start off by throwing a cut and immediately twitching [Zucken] to another cut. The second cut usually goes to a different opening. Sometimes I also do winding actions, but this is less productive when you don't have a partner.
Next, I do a cut and perform two twitches. The twitches are mostly Zwerchauen, Schielhauen, and Krumphauen.
Lastly, I cut Zwerchauen, Schielhauen, and Krumphauen intermixed for about a minute straight, rest a little and go for another minute.

The idea is to tone the shoulders and arms. I always do this with footwork, never standing still.

[Jason Taylor]

While we clearly need good physical conditioning to truly excel at our art, I see the amount of time groups spend in different types of activities as largely a matter of group preference and group culture. We spend significant time some days (not every day, of course) discussing interpretations of the source literature. We might spend half an hour trying to back-engineer something from Ringeck or Wallerstein to make sure we "get" it, and I've found that this process is much more efficient when it's a group process. It seems that the development of our art needs both the cerebral approach and the hard-core athletic approach, kind of how scientists all approach similar fields in different ways when conducting research, which is really what we're all doing.

Mind you, just as all scientists need a basic skill level, so do all WMA practitioners. So physical fitness is definitely important to me; I just don't emphasize it to the degree that some other members do.

As far as meeting times, we also only get a couple of hours on Fridays, so we like to spend more time on technique and drill and keep physical fitness to a personal duty.

Of course, I do definitely appreciate the comment made earlier about driving away lazy and/or annoying participants before they become too problematic....

Jason

[I. Hartikainen]

Axel,

thanks for the post and the kind words! My apologies if I sounded too much like criticizing what you do, that was not my intention. I totally agree that a competition-like setting has it's place in WMA, as it has had in the past as well. And in a sense, friendly free fighting is the closest to actual combat or duel that we can get, so it definitely has it's merits as a training tool and form of practice.

This again is not directed to anyone, but generally I hope that people are really considering the difference between martial art and martial sport, or training for a duel and training for combat sports.

Being in good condition, for example, helps always but is less important in a duel if your technical skills is superior as is your sense of timing, distance and position. (Unless you're really unfit!)

In a ring fight the conditioning matters more, and to put things in context, think about fighting in plate armor for a full day.

The context plays a signifant role in the way we train and teach others. I personally aim for a context that does not really exist fully in today's world, since my training aims to increase my chances of surviving a judicial duel, and secondarily an informal fight in the setting of the time period of the arts I am practicing. At the same time I aim to teach professionally, and being a professional swordsman, which carries some other requirements with it. I need to be able to show my worth in order to attain students (luckily we are all friends in this age and I am unlikely to be challenged to duels or assassinated by the some other teachers' students ) and I need to be fit enough to keep teaching others and show them an example.

Considering the casual student of today's world we have to consider the reasons why they come to train with us (in whatever it is that each group/teacher offers to the students). If people are fit already because of their other hobbies and activities (like they may have been 600 years ago) they might come for because they want to learn the art; thus we teach them the art. Or they come to us because they are unfit and are looking for activity to increase their fitness (and hopefully learn the art at the same time); thus we may condition them at first until they are able to physically learn the art.

This is overly simplified, but important. My personal preference is to separate this to three areas: conditioning, or what I like to call "preparing the body" for the practice, the practice and thirdly learning the art. Preparing the body is exercise to make sure the student is able to practice properly, in proper positions and with proper intention &c, the practice is repeating exercises closer to the context of the combat, free fighting &c done after the student is physically able to properly perform it, and finally learning the art, where new material and the underlying understanding in a more theoretical sense is built. The third part is usually less physically demanding, but when the new material is then brought back to practice it gets more active.

Yours,
Ilkka

[Jaron Bernstein]

I think you need to include some amount of fitness training in every class. However, those should be exercises that combine conditioning and WMA skills as much as possible. I don't want a class to be a pure BS military PT training session. You can work out on your own time for that. Classes are when you get to work with other people to develop your skills.

We have had at our local study group folks ranging from natural athletes, to badly out-of-shape to somewhere in between (that would be me ). I don't ask that anyone perform as an olympian. I do require that a person put forth the effort and do the same activity as everyone else. If it takes one person 1 minute to do 50 hindu squats (part of our warm up), great. If they have to take 10 minutes to do them and must do them in sets of 5 at a time, then we will be supportive and encouraging, but ultimately, they still do need to do the same 50. Again, it isn't a competetive environment, but we do expect people to try to the best of their ability.

[Gene Tausk]

I think you need to include some amount of fitness training in every class. However, those should be exercises that combine conditioning and WMA skills as much as possible. I don't want a class to be a pure BS military PT training session. You can work out on your own time for that. Classes are when you get to work with other people to develop your skills.

Agree with Jaron that class time is to be used to develop your ARMA skills. Except for a basic warmup and stretching, as much as possible practice times are to be utilized to exploit training with partners. Staying in shape is every person's responsibility and must be done in one's own time.