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Saturday 27 April 2019

Curriculum: Class 3

By the time of writing this, Class 3 of the Curriculum was two weeks ago, and annoyingly I'm struggling a bit to remember what we did. I was pleased that all three newbies were still present, and displayed every sign of being keen to continue. One of them is ambidexterous, with a preference for using her left hand, so I was very pleased that our resident leftie Mícheál was present as well.

Once more, we started by quickly revising what we had done so far in order to keep the flow of new information untangled. I outsourced this to Aodh while I was getting into armour.

1. Third shot: The Wrap

I remember having fierce trouble with the wrap shot. I don't feel that I properly "got" it until late last year, in fact. Many other people have also reported difficulty with this shot, so I wanted to spend some extra time with it. Annoyingly, we don't have a pell at the practice, but we did have three spare people, so (as very often) we used those people and swords held upright by them as pells. I explained my method, and then had them practice the shot, reviewing it for each one at a time.

I started out by talking about targeting, and how many people forget that the legal target areas extend to the back of the body as well as the front. The wrap is a way to access those hard to reach target areas.

My disclaimer is always that I can only teach as I have been taught. With the wrap, this is particularly pronounced, as my Knight teaches it in a very specific way. The shot starts the same way as the two others. From your basic guard, your hip moves forward, letting its force to extend your arm, in a throwing motion, so that the sword moves forward, pommel first, in a straight line, as though you are planning to throw an onside shot. Instead of keeping your palm facing upright for the entire shot, at the point where the momentum has pushed the sword to its halfway point, you turn your elbow outward so that the point of your elbow faces out. This turns your hand so that when the strike lands, your palm is facing downwards.

I demonstrated the arm movement without a stick - it's like clasping someone around the neck or back with your stick - and asked them to do it to each other. Then we moved on to practicing it with swords, and I was pleased to see that the learners picked up the shot reasonably well.

2. Connecting shots and footwork

I warned the learners that I was about to introduce them to a very tedious exercise, which resembled the previous week's Statues game but was nowhere near as fun. I found that it was a very useful exercise, though, as it forces you to think about connecting your feet and your sword from early on.

You assume your basic stance, and then proceed a distance using the basic footwork. With each step, you strike against an invisible opponent, or, alternatively, recover your sword. The step and the strike must be in sync. You can strike using any of the three blows you have learned, but each must be fully recovered before you strike another one. You repeat the distance a few times, including backwards.

3. Active spectating and commentary

While I have deliberately - partly because of their own request, and partly because of my own judgement - not put the newbies in armour yet, I have wanted them to get a good idea of what they're getting into. Each time a new person appeared, we started out by doing a quick introduction to the concept of the fighting and the gear we use, and then I demonstrated with someone else what the fighting was actually like.

In subsequent cases where the newbies have had to be idle while fighting has taken place, due to space restrictions, for instance, I have used what I call the method of active spectating. That simply means that they have a more experienced fighter watching with them, providing commentary of what is actually taking place - and why. The commentator points out things like, "Did you see that wrap?" or "Do you see how she's moving her shield, only a little bit" or "Look at how he's using his height and longer range to get at her". The commentator attempts to show that any fight consists of elements that the learners already know, it is simply matter of being able to isolate them from the overall whole - just as when you're learning a new language.

4. Power and movement

To end this session, which contained a lot of things to take in, I wanted to give the learners the experience of putting the lessons in use and to get the experience of hitting something for real, without having to be nervous of being hit in return. Mícheál and I, in armour, went on full defence, and got each of the learners to practice trying to hit us with power, while keeping moving at all times. I was pleased with the results - there is, of course, a lot to be done, but the very solid base was definitely there.

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