Continued Notes on Windsor's "Theory and Practice of Historical Martial Arts," Part II: The Core Drill

Much of the chapter on how to choose, analyze, and evaluate a historic treatise in Windsor does not really apply to the Bellatrix book.  The Bellatrix book is very clear about its assumptions - the weapon form is SCA heavy, with rattan and shield; it is specific to the tournament; the language is English; there is only one guard identified.

Where it starts to become useful is in developing what Windsor calls the "core drill," which needs to capture something fundamental about the school.  Ideally, these are partnered exercises, because a human being provides better targeting information and feedback than a pell or empty air, but they can be run solo if need be.  These are, in fact, the same as paired kata in any Japanese martial art, and variations on them - a point Windsor addresses well by saying "and you could probably run this drill, with minor modifications, for all eight of the attacks mentioned in Fiore" and Porter over-elaborated - form the cornerstone of training according to Windsor.

The core drill is the drill that expresses the one thing you have to know about the system, whether that's how to deliver a mandritto fendente from posta di donna or how to draw-cut, cover, down-cut, and sheathe.  Windsor divides his drills into four components.  I will adopt the same model here, because it is a convenient framework and I don't see anything wrong with it and some points in its favor.  His components:

1. Attack
2. Defense
3. Counter to Defense
4. Counter to Counter

For our purposes, the one thing you have to know about the Bellatrix System is how to throw a flat snap with authority, and the only defense of note mentioned by Duke Paul is the punch-block, so this simplifies things tremendously.

A possible drill, then, is that the attacker throws a snap to the defender's shield-side head, the defender punch-blocks, the attacker recovers through a teardrop and throws a second snap, and the defender punch-blocks again.  This is, funny enough, the drill I ran on Monday as an experiment with bucklers, and I find it satisfactory as far as it goes, though I would elaborate it.  It has the advantage that in the timing of the attacker's hip recovery, the "defender" can also attack, and the "attacker" punch-block, meaning a slightly more information-dense training session.

Here's where it gets complicated.  Windsor points out, rightly, that there are a number of implied tasks.  Let's take just step one, "attack."  To attack with power requires that the attacker be standing in a firm, grounded stance, with the sword shoulder locked back, and that they understand the difference between arm and leg power generation.  They then must understand how a snap comes in, and they must be capable of executing it slowly enough to drill the motion without murdering the "defender," which Porter defines as "just fast enough the sword swings on its own" for beginners.

Each of those steps then receives the same attention - how do you punch-block? The way Duke Paul describes, which I practiced on this week, is basically reaching out and pointing at the attacker's sword hand with the index finger.  This has some very interesting ramifications with center-grips (or at least bucklers), which we explored on Monday, but the point is that it is a viable technique that still has to be trained and drilled.

Similarly, if the teardrop return is used, it has to be explained what a teardrop return is and how it works - that the path described by the tip of the sword is a teardrop, and that this involves the sword dropping and accelerating through a tight loop guided but not driven by the arm.

When it is all done, you are drilling multiple skills in the same drill, and you can begin elaborating the drill - for instance, changing the targeting of the snap, or having the pair circling either left or right, or using a moulinet instead of a teardrop, or the counter-counter being a sword parry instead of a punch block.

From here, Windsor advises, especially novice-level classes, teach the defense as a solo drill and practice it to make sure that the defender is safe before letting the drill go public.  Punch-blocking requires something to block against, but again, as Porter suggests, you can use the hand without a stick in it to train that.  Windsor goes on to specify that you should describe the tactical setup of this situation - in this case, the fighter is in range (a cardinal sin according to Bellatrix, but this is a drill, and this is part of what Windsor describes as "some bullshit built into every drill"), and sees an opening to the opponent's head.

Being able to construct a reasonable drill to train a known technique from Windsor's method helps sell his program.  Next up: Syllabus design (note: yes, I know Duke Paul has a syllabus for his program already; this is me using Windsor to read a "historical" manuscript).