Wanted : Sparring Video

[Anthony Boyd]

Perhaps we should work out a method for commenting on video clips, such as by the elapsed time, so that it's easier to discuss sequences in the clips?

[JeanryChandler]

Thanks for sharing the clips Jeanry. That park you spar in looks great to me. Seoul lacks a little in that regard... unless you want to practice under the baffled eyes of a few thousand spectators.

Yeah, that is in City Park, one of the biggest urban parks in the nation, full of scuylpture and fountains (it was designed by the same architect who did Central Park in New York) and largely underutilized. It's quite beautiful. We are lucky to have a lot of parks here, and numerous outdoor places to spar. It would be nice to have an indoor facility we could use during the summer and the coldest part of winter though.

I watched each clip three times. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to watch both fighters at the same time in a real clip [as opposed to the movies]. I have to watch each fighter separately to see if they hit or to see if they get hit.

Yes, I find this to be the case as well. I actually figure out what actually happened in many cases while I'm processing the clips, the software goes through them in slow motion as they are being written to disk, this is usually when I can actually tell who got hit first. Its the same when viewing other peoples clips as well.

Thanks for the expanded description of the action on the page. That sped up the process of reviewing the clips immensely.

Yeah, it's time consuming, but I think it really helps with the interpretation of what you are seeing.

Here are my thoughts:

Skip-Jean-C3: Long, as you said, but fun to watch. Was the grass wet?

It was surprising to me, but this one was everybodies favorite from that session. I thought we looked kind of goofy and hesitant, but other folks, particularly amateurs to WMA, were interested in the guards we were using and how we were (amateurishly) trying to read each other.

It's funny, but the ground was actually very dry. What looks like moisture beign kicked up a couple of times was dust.

What was happening mentally as the fight "dragged on" for you? Was stress building as the bout went on beyond normal bounds? Did that change the way you approached re-engagement?

Yes, I was getting nervous. I had about a six inch shorter blade, and I wasn't striking fast enough, so I was having trouble getting hits. Skip used to be a fairly easy opponent for me with the long sword, but in the sixteen weeks or so he has been studying the weapon seriously he has really improved in skill, and this combined with his street fighting experience and good reflexes, timing and strength have transformed him into a very difficult opponent for me now. I was surpirsed how tough this match was and how long it was taking, I was trying to be careful to avoid a mutual death at all costs, (we both were) but wanted the victory. I was also starting to get tired toward the end of it, I'm so out of shape. In the end I took a risk which did not pay off.

Lenny-Chris-c1

Liked the Second bout: Nice, quick and decisive. Attacks extend beyond the current movement, and show signs of tactics over reaction.

Lenny has a strong background in sword and buckler and rapier fighting. He has also now become a very challenging Longsword fighter, though much more aggressive than Skip, he has very good situational awareness and always thinks a few moves ahead. That was a very nice combination he did. Chris doesn't look as impressive on film because his form isn't quite correct yet, but he is quite intimidating to fight because he is so strong and has remarkable reach, and strikes quite precisely. There is also some kind of psychological element I think...

Lenny-Jean-c5 & 6: More bouts here like the second in c1. Both fighters are aware of possible counters and have a good interplay of tactics. I like the different dynamic here. Isn't it interesting how style can change drastically when facing certain opponents?

Yes it is. It worries me actually, especially how long it takes for me to assess the way someone else fights, but I'll get into that more later after I post the next series of clips.

All: like to see the staggering and twitching prior to some bouts. Glad it's not just us that do that. Rather like exorcising the frivolity, eh?

You could say so!

Weak areas: As you indicated, the half-swording seemed experimental. I tried a little myself a few weeks ago and

It is definately new to us, we are just starting to look at it. With all the binding that has suddenly started happening in our group, it came up sooner than I expected it would, so we aren't prepared yet.

ended up getting well-struck on the head for my trouble. What I had wanted to do seemed clear enough, but unlike you, I couldn't get it together in real time.
In your clip, you were able to parry Skip quite easily while grounded I thought, but when it came time to close the distance, his retreat put you at a disadvantage. It was one you overcame regardless, likely because Skip couldn't/didn't try to interrupt your charge, desite his range advantage.

I find there is a big intimidation factor with half-swording, both for the attacker and the defender. You may notice the huge breath I draw in before charging. I was not aware of that at the time. Something about the obvious switch to closer range fighting seems like upping the ante, and probably because we are not used to it, it seems to intimidate the defender even as it is challenging to the attacker to really commit him /herself. I know for me it was at first very difficult to make the decision to charge in initially, and my hesitation is why he was able to backpedal away somewhat. I have learned that this is key, you have to commit and charge instantly, if you do you have a much better chance of catching them off -guard. I have gotten faster at this transition since that clip was filmed.

Thanks again for sharing the clips. I look forward to reading some knowledgeable commentary regarding them.

So far, your commentary stands out! I really appreciate your detailed analysis, it is very helpful to me and the members of my group to get intelligent feedback. I'm sorry the more senior ARMA guys don't seem to be into discussing this stuff but they are probably so far ahead of us that it's just silly to them. In the meantime, I really appreciate the efforts of you and Lance and Alfred and anyone else who can put their two cents in, because outside analysis and criticism is extremely helpful to our growth as WMA fighters.

Jeanry

[Brian Hunt]

Jeanry,

It isn't necessarily that senior members don't wish to comment, it is primarily a time issue. I am in the middle of so much writing, I haven't even had the 2 hours I need to respond to John Jordan in the I.33 video thread. So don't take offense that you haven't had the critiques you hoped for, remember that several of us are buried in research projects and our own training. What I saw of your videos (even though I don't consider myself a senior ARMA member, and I certainly don't hold the rank of senior free scholar), you have improved a great deal. Your foot work is much better than the last time I commented upon one of your videos, you are using the guards, plus I see much better strikes (staying with the historically correct strikes) and edge alignment, I see some use of the master cuts, and your sense of distance appears to be stronger. I also like the fact that in a couple of your videos you are starting to twich from one opening to another. Keep practicing and it will continue to get better and better.

Good luck and be well.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[JeanryChandler]

Thank you for your comments Brian. I wasn't offended, for the record, just disappointed. We are kind of "the blind leading the blind" down here, as we have no local members who are very advanced, especially in terms of correct WMA form, so any feedback, particularly critique, from more experienced people such as yourself is very apreciated.

We need all the help we can get, but that doesn't mean we diserve it. Thanks very much for your comments.

J

[JeffGentry]

Hey Jeanry

the one thing i am seeing in alot of video is people are so worried about what there opponent is going to do, that they try to avoid or engage his sword instead of getting off line and hitting there opponent, i watched C3 the "long" clip, that may be a long fight for you guy's i don't think it is so much long or ridiculous, i know at time's here in columbus we move through the gaurd's going in a circle, the point is we are trying to find an opening where we can engage and the counter is not there or it is slow, the one thing i have noticed in your video's when you guy's strike it seem's very linear if you move through your gaurd's and circle your opponent maybe go right a few step's then back left in a dffrent gaurd sometime's you can close the distance a step or two and they don't realize it because of the movement then you can setup a strike as you go from one gaurd two another before the see they change in distance, we do it fairly quickly now and we try to step off line with every strike i realy think getting offline is very important and that is where moving and changing gaurd's help's.

if you go and read Ringeck or Meyer look at what they say about the four opening's and fencing to the four opening's, i think these are a very important thing to know and somewhat ignored in conversation about the subject thinking about them and how i can fence to and from them has helped me, i am learning that certain thing's open or close certain of the four opening's so i need to be aware of what is going on, if i set myself to protect my upper right opening and my opponent has set himself to attack my lower left opening then i protected nothing, this is were moving through the gaurd's is advantageous at time's you can see an opening in there defense and move to a gaurd that will allow you to attack it and change through this is a very dynamic art and it rquire's alot of movement and thought.

i.e. you are in right ochs, moving to your right in a circle, they are in pflug on there left, well there right side is open, so you go to left och's and change direction to go to your left they don't move, take one step and strike a zornhau to there right side it is hard for them to protect there right from there left pflug, they can do it only now they are at a disadvantage, remember you have to move off line.

This MHO remember i know nothing.

Jeff

[JeanryChandler]

Interesting clips. You and your guys seem to have a lot of energy and fight at high speed. The clips go by so quickly though it is kind of hard for me to see what is happening. Your matches seem to end quickly too, as ours sometimes do as well.

Jeanry

[JeanryChandler]

That is fascinating that you make the aluminum swords yourselves. How do you do this? Stock reduction with grinders?

J

[JeanryChandler]

I especially liked the last clip.

Care to elaborate? <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

J

[JeanryChandler]

Jeanry: Will check the videos out later. Thanks for posting.

I look forward to your analysis Lance. I am about to post a new series which I think you will find interesting, we use some techniques similar to your favorite methods.

J

[JeanryChandler]

Jeanry,

By the way, can you raise the resolution up a bit? It's a bit hard to see...

I'm going to get a CD from lenny with a higher resolution transfer of the video. It's quite time consuming to get the clips processed with the software I have, perhaps you could make me a list of any you found particularly hard to suss out and I can repost them for you. I'd rather do that than all of them.

J

[Casper Bradak]

Care to elaborate?

Been a while since I watched it, but if I recall it seemed have more well done fights, more defense and offense combined, as opposed to singular defense or slower time counters.

[JeanryChandler]

Ok, here are some new clips. (Please ignore the chatter in the background, it was right after the US presidential election and everybody was arguing about stupid crap...)

http://www.iregames.com/jr/slum4.htm

Right now this is just 3 clips, there will be at least 6 more by tomorrow morning.

In these clips you see us sparring with Dave. Dave is an experience rapier fighter who is somewhat new to using padded weapons. His skill and professionalism put us on alert and I believe our fencing was better this day as a result.

His style was different too and his powerful thrust was something we had not faced to this extent before. It was very interesting fighting with him.

To reiterate from my previous post:

November 6 was even more interesting in some ways, we were visited by a trained rapier fighter named Dave who lives a few hours drive away and can't normally make it to our practices. He fought several bouts with our own resident rapier fighter, Lenny, using steel schlager blades and some del tin steel sparring rapiers.

Later, Dave tried his hand at the padded weapons, which he had little experience with, and did very well, fighting briefly with longsword against Jean, then sword and buckler and sword and dagger against Jean, Skip, and Chris, and Jean again, followed by more sparring with Lenny using the steel rapiers.

Dave was the master of the thrust with any weapon he used, and forced me for one to adapt my tactics. He was so effective at curtailing my normal charge with painful, jarring stop-thrusts that I largely abandoned that approach and relied instead on distance fighting and cuts to the arm and hand, including some one handed sling cuts similar to the technique Lance Chan uses a lot. Dave, in spite of his "advanced years" (compared to us spring chickens!) is faster than most of us, but he doesn't yet have a lot of experience dealing with cuts of the type delivered by longsword or arming sword. This was the only reason I was able to pull off my modified tactic with some success.

I look forward to your comments.

Jeanry

[Shawn Cathcart]

We do a lot to get people's cardio up in the club. We open in the summer with at least 30-40 minutes of soccer, and in the winter when we're in the gym do the same playing basketball. Its a pretty integral part of getting people warmed up and in shape. I'm not as in good a shape as I'd like to be, but I'd hate to see what shape I might be in if I wasn't doing this <img src="/forum/images/icons/laugh.gif" alt="" />.

I can relate to the speed of the clips. It really is quite hard to tell what's happening, it really has to be played frame by frame. That's generally how I view other peoples clips, to get more of an idea what is happening. Its likely easier for us because we have knowledge of what it was we were likely attempting in each clip. I'd say the majority of our sparring ends quite quickly. While on occasion an action will draw out, you'll usually notice that after several blows there is a breaking, with the opponents seperating. We tend to find that at full intent and speed that after 3 or 4 continuous strikes they can start to become sloppy and leave you open...so generally we break at that point, if your opponent allows you the luxury.

As for the aluminum their pretty simple really. As for how the stock aluminum is cut you'd have to ask Milan to get specifics on that. But essentially its just the blade with tang, aluminum bars drilled through on each side for the crossguard with a wood insert filling the gap. The handle is just hand sanded/carved wood epoxied/glued to each side to the "tang" and then wrapped in tape. Milan did a really good job getting the balance right. They feel and are modeled after earlier more cutting centric longswords. The weight is quite good also. Obviously their not perfect which is why we don't train with them exclusively, but how we've made them, we've found them to be very useful and very cheap. So long as one keeps their short-comings in mind and uses a good variety of implements I think their fine.

[Shawn Cathcart]

Just watched the last batch of clips. Your definately fighting with intent, doing better at committing to attacks. A few things I noticed.

- several cases of double cuts, as in cutting once then immediately coming around for a second cut. It looks like most of the time the first cut is actually searching for the blade, to take it offline, opening up a target for the second. We generally found that the first cut searching for the blade misses, and even if it does catch it, it usually doesn't give you the opening you hope it will. Rather than using a cut to take the blade offline you could try closing with a more firm binding technique, then countering. If he winds away from this type of bind at least your arms and blade are out in front of you can adjust accordingly whereas a cut will leave you a little more out of sorts. Or just commit to a full attack in the first place and stepping slightly off-line to protect against the obvious stop-thrusts from phlug.
- while jostling for position and looking for openings is good, you can sometimes wait too long. Rather than letting someone switch into a guard, and then settle into it, I often find it beneficial to attack as soon as I see them switching guards. You have to be careful depending who your fighting as that might be what their expecting, but more often than not just as someone switches guards they either goof up, or do someting predictable when pressed.
- try working out some drills that reflect how people react to certain techniques. Go through them slowly and try to think of after a cut or bind what you could possible do next, and just create drills in that manner. For example I give you an oberhau cut from my right, you beat it aside and counter with a false edge cut to the head, I raise the hilt up to protect myself and then either I could keep initiative and say zwerch to his right side, or he could keep the initiative by say rolling over his strong/hilt and going for a pommel strike. It will help build reactions to scenario's you'll actually find yourself in during sparring. Do the same when practicing cuts. Like ghost fighting, give a cut, pretend it was deflecting, try to visualize what the counter would be. It will help break you out of doing the same old reactions all the time. As I'm sure you notice at times, you can see opportunities, but just aren't sure, or can't think of which way to exploit them. These types of things can help build some of those reactions.
- try go be less linear. Hell I still have to constantly remind myself of this one. Giving initial cuts with a slightly offline step to the side still gives you the distance you need, but makes those phlug thrusts a little less easy to toss off. Also, try pointing out to your sparring mates just how often a stop-thrust ends in a double hit. If not done properly its not likely turning out well for them either.
- I'd also look at the mastercuts. The hardest thing is knowing how to attack a particular guard. Its my opinion that the masterhau listed as breaking certain guards do specifically that, break the guard. I don't always think their necessarily a one off, sure fire blow. I think in part what they do is give a cut (mastercut) that is most difficult for that particular guard to deal with, hence making it the most safe cut to give against that guard, effectively breaking its effectiveness. Generally if the cut doesn't land right off the bat, it should lead to a bind that should work in your favor. Which is what I think Ringeck in particular was getting at.
- also take heart that some techniques and concepts are pretty hard to do with padded weapons alone. Binding certainly feels different and winding can be tricky. The thickness of the blades, the asorbotion the foam has seemingly taking the wind out of a blow, lots of little idiosyncracies that one has to keep in mind.

I'd also say I notice the above things because they are things I've also done in the past, and in large part still have to remind myself of even now when sparring. You seem to get a good variety of people out which is always good, lots of people fight in lots of different ways which often helps you notice things about technique so long as you remain objective about it.

[Alfred Wong]

It's alright, just a suggestion, improving the quality will allow the hits to be seen easily... coz' my observation is poor. <img src="/forum/images/icons/crazy.gif" alt="" />