Training schedules?

[Jaron Bernstein]

It has fallen upon Jeff the younger and myself to devise the weekly training schedule for our little group (ARMA Columbus). I was wondering what sort of training schedules your groups use for your classes so we can get some inspiration.

1. How often per week to you meet.
2. How long are the classes
3. What material do you do and in what order
4. What material is covered every class and what material only sometimes
5. What is the mix of sword, halbswert, dolchfechten and ringen (we haven't added other weapons yet and won't be for some time)
6. What is the mix of padded sparring vs. waster free play.
7. In general things like that as our current curriculum seems to be along the lines of "what do you want to do next week?"

Thanks for the help

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Hey guys, This is a great topic, which consumes most of my free time from day to day. ARMA-Appleton is even newer than your group, so take that for what it is worth. Having said this however this is one area where I think our group is doing pretty well. Consequently I am going to your 1.1 school and plan on sitting down with both of you guys to have some info exchange time on this very subject.

OK here is my 2 cent piece. I know from Military and Law Enforcement training that Martial skills will start to deteriate after only about 6 hours depending on the individual. Keeping this in mind I think the ideal set-up for training would be a twice or even three times a week hour long session would be ideal. Unfortunatley most of us cannot get together that often to train. Currently we are meeting once a week, Sundays from 3:00 in the pm to about 5:30ish. I e-mail every one the training outline on about wed, so they have a few days in advance to look at the material and even practice it or at least be familiar with it by the time we meet. We do this is SWAT training as well and it is a very important component to training. This way every one is thinking about the skills in their mind at least, so there is a familiarity with the subject.

I try and keep us in general to the outline but we do deviate from it from time to time given the mood and tempo of the group, which is natural and healthy given the group dynamic.

I am currently working on a goals section of the outline, where the goals of each session are laid out right in the begining of the document so that it very clear, an example is the following for our group's next training session:"GOALS: This weeks session is focused on the Versetzen, becoming familiar with the movements and developing a sound martial foundation for use in dynamic applications" so right away you have laid some foundation to keep the person in tune to the overall goal. Each exercise after that is generally accepted as the goal has been made clear.

In the past we started kind of hodge-podge as well and that works sometimes, but as I continue with this I find it is too easy to become bogged down with to much if this then what, what about if i do this etc....so sometimes it's neccessary to get back on track and focus on the goal.

I also see my group as a legitimate martial class and expect three areas to be central to the groups focus or mindset, Intenisty, Duration, Frequency. Each student must recognize that Learning a martial system, or training the body and mind to function in a dynamic setting takes hard, dare I say sometimes "boring" work. The real trick has been accomplishing this by making it seem diffrent, if that makes any sense. This really comes out though, during sparring.

As far as sparring goes we do not do it every session, as a matter of fact we do it about 1in 6 sessions. I see sparring as the end result of a set of hard earned privledges, which the group earns through the "boring" elements of the class. I had a member say to me recently,"I am sick of guards, lets do something else" We did, as I want to make sure everyone is included, but I gave myself a pat on the back as well as I took it as a sign that we are doing it enough! Then of course we did it again later after we did something else for awhile.-Ha

Anyway, a member also suggested a "new Technique of the week session" so I added this as well. Each week after we did everything else we add a new technique and work through it together. This is also laid out in the training document so the group has a pre-concieved idea of what it might be, or (hopefully) they take time and look up the technique as well, which by the way, is a great benchmark for you to determine who is really giving the material some attention, and who is along for the ride.

So in general here is the way we shake it down:
Session Goals
Warm-up and Social Time
Guards-with a new guard added week by week
Combatives: Master strikes and facing/range drills
Techniques: entering/leaving encounter drills
Reps: 10-cut or 8-cut with tiprogressions
New techniques section-also cover the techniques from last week again
Sparring or Floryishing each done occasionally
Wrap-up-talk about overall goals: ARMA events, membership issues, etc...
End

Well I think I have talked enough for now, but like I said before it's not really in concrete and we are flexible (a little) but this is a great topic, which I would like to see more attention given by the Club as a whole--Talk to you guys later, Aaron(ARMA-Appleton)

[Jaron Bernstein]

"Consequently I am going to your 1.1 school and plan on sitting down with both of you guys to have some info exchange time on this very subject."

I was hoping that John C. could talk a bit during the 1.1 about "ARMA pedagogy for dummies" or the like. My spouse trains school teachers and has had some fun with our "lesson plans" <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

" Keeping this in mind I think the ideal set-up for training would be a twice or even three times a week hour long session would be ideal. Unfortunatley most of us cannot get together that often to train. Currently we are meeting once a week, Sundays from 3:00 in the pm to about 5:30ish."

We just train together once per week also due to scheduling issues. We try to focus more on partner stuff consequently. My current thinking is that I can do drills alone in my back yard. Only once per week can we do this with actual people so I like to maximize that experience.

" I e-mail every one the training outline on about wed, so they have a few days in advance to look at the material and even practice it or at least be familiar with it by the time we meet. We do this is SWAT training as well and it is a very important component to training. This way every one is thinking about the skills in their mind at least, so there is a familiarity with the subject."

Good idea.

"I am currently working on a goals section of the outline, where the goals of each session are laid out right in the begining of the document so that it very clear, an example is the following for our group's next training session:"GOALS: This weeks session is focused on the Versetzen, becoming familiar with the movements and developing a sound martial foundation for use in dynamic applications" so right away you have laid some foundation to keep the person in tune to the overall goal. Each exercise after that is generally accepted as the goal has been made clear. "

Do you have an overarching framework that you use over the long term (i.e footwork, to guards, to cuts, to specific techniques, to ringen or whatever) or is it just a week-to-week plan? Does anyone else out there do that? What would be a good progression?

"I also see my group as a legitimate martial class and expect three areas to be central to the groups focus or mindset, Intenisty, Duration, Frequency. Each student must recognize that Learning a martial system, or training the body and mind to function in a dynamic setting takes hard, dare I say sometimes "boring" work."

My concern for that is as follows. We are very grateful now to have a number of college students with our group instead of the 3 or 4 people we had for a long time. I don't want them to get bored and give up.

"As far as sparring goes we do not do it every session, as a matter of fact we do it about 1in 6 sessions. I see sparring as the end result of a set of hard earned privledges, which the group earns through the "boring" elements of the class. I had a member say to me recently,"I am sick of guards, lets do something else" We did, as I want to make sure everyone is included, but I gave myself a pat on the back as well as I took it as a sign that we are doing it enough! Then of course we did it again later after we did something else for awhile.-Ha"

That seems like not much sparring or free play. We do padded sparring with great frequency. I wonder what the more established groups do in that regard? My concern for a lack of sparring comes from my time learning EMA forms. It seemed that without "force on force" training, those forms and even partner drills remained empty dance steps inapplicable to resisting opponents.

"Anyway, a member also suggested a "new Technique of the week session" so I added this as well. Each week after we did everything else we add a new technique and work through it together. This is also laid out in the training document so the group has a pre-concieved idea of what it might be, or (hopefully) they take time and look up the technique as well, which by the way, is a great benchmark for you to determine who is really giving the material some attention, and who is along for the ride."

We tried something like that. We photocopied the meyer text of some secondary strikes and relavant illustrations, broke everyone up into partner teams and assigned each a secondary strike to interpret and teach. It seemed to have been well received.

"So in general here is the way we shake it down:
Session Goals
Warm-up and Social Time
Guards-with a new guard added week by week
Combatives: Master strikes and facing/range drills
Techniques: entering/leaving encounter drills
Reps: 10-cut or 8-cut with tiprogressions
New techniques section-also cover the techniques from last week again
Sparring or Floryishing each done occasionally
Wrap-up-talk about overall goals: ARMA events, membership issues, etc..."

Makes sense. My concern is how to keep the new people interested and coming back for more, while still doing "quality" content work (for example, Jeff the younger and I will ponder a page of meyer and try to puzzle it out over 30 minutes...which wouldn't exactly enthrall others who have nothing to do while we sit there and do this). I also lack enthusiasm for doing solo drills in class that I can do alone in my backyard without the 1 hour commute to class. If I (and the others) are going to make a 1 hour trip in (which most of us do) I like to work things that I CAN'T work on alone primarily, either partner drills or sparring.

Do you do any dagger or ringen work? At what stage do you think those should be introduced?

"Well I think I have talked enough for now, but like I said before it's not really in concrete and we are flexible (a little) but this is a great topic, which I would like to see more attention given by the Club as a whole--Talk to you guys later, Aaron(ARMA-Appleton) "

<img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" /> to ye also. We are quite flexible as for ideas. At the moment we do what could be called weekly lesson plans, but with no larger progression framework. It seems kind of random. We have done sessions with rondel (well rolled up magazines at least) and ringen, but I am not sure where or when that should be introduced.

Be well <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

[leam hall]

I think your focus on "us" things during class is pretty good. Timing and distance are very difficult to get on your own. Something you may want to consider is programmed sparring, where you work on a particular move.

I'm currently without a group, having just moved. As suggested I do my workouts 3 times a week, but not for long enough. My personal training plan is:

Walk to get loosened up and thinking about it.
Footwork
3-Cuts slowly, for form. Then increase intent.
8 Cut slowly, and then faster.
Tiprogressions, facing different directions.
Repititious attacks/defenses moves with footwork. Generally one or two.
An exercise Tim Sheetz calls the "Helicopter", modified.
Tipogressions/Attacks on uneven ground.
3 or 8 cut slowly, to cool down and refocus.

As you probably note, there's no master cuts or much advanced work in there. I'm currently re-doing my schedule to break some of the footwork and other basic stuff into a 5 minute exercise I can do during the day. I'm also going over the manuals I have and writing my training plan to match the GFS stuff.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Guy's

Well i know part of my problem with putting together a training schedule is now i am at the point were i have taught them what i am sure of, I am learning new thing's i just am not confident enough in my new thing's to be willing to teach them because my interpretation may change in a week, month or whatever so i hesitate to try to teach something i don't know, I would be willing to help them learn something that we are all trying to figure out, i just don't feel like we should teach it before we have a solid grasp of it ourselve's, I know me personaly i have taught alot of other thing's and alway's with the knowledge that i new what i was talking about, we have already had the experience of teaching something then going back and saying it was wrong here's how you realy do it, the "student's" in our group are exactly that student's, like in a class they come in and we hand them knowledge and take it as the right way to do it, they expect us to teach them every technique and from what i can tell they do no research so it is not a matter of a simple training schedule, it is more a lesson plan to teach them thing's i'm not sure of myself, As far as the bored factor, when i have to go around and watch and show everyone how to do every technique on my one night of group practice and i do little if any practice myself on that night it's pretty boring to me so i am getting to the point were i don't care if they are bored when i do a half hour of them watching me and Jaron try to puzzle through a new technique i have spent 6 hour's on my own trying to figure out myself so i can then turn around and teach it to them, After all part of ARMA is scholarship and reading and learning on our own is part of what we do and sometime's, not often though, it is boring.

Now i know it may sound harsh for me to say these thing's and in the very beginning i did need to be taught, only for a short time though because i got into the manual's( i borrowed Jaron's Ringeck, Wallerstein) and i began to do thing's on my own and started to ask question's and try thing's on my own then i had something to contribute to our once a week session and this is not happening in this case, and i do not feel that i am personaly qualified to say i am going to teach you this when i barely know it i just don't do thing's that way, yes a good way to learn is to teach i just don't think it is taught with out a firm understanding of what is being taught then it become's you bullshiting someone telling them something you don't know.

I think we can only teach them what we realy have solid knowledge of we have had to go back and reteach a few of the basic drill's because our understanding of them was off and they are basic ARMA drill's, plain and simple i don't feel qualified to teach ARMA fencing.



By the way, i have only been doing this for about 8 month's, and my idea's and the way i do thing's is alway's changing.

Jeff The younger

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Jaron, Jeff the "younger", Jaron these are good points you have brought up and I agree with almost all of what you said. For us though I have the impression that some of our members are not doing alot of solo drills on thier own. I know that some are, and actually I have one member that is super-dedicated and working really hard, and the rest are in-between somewhere. I still enjoy watching them do some of the drills in group class, so that the rest of us can watch and offer advice, or give comments. It also kind of rewards those that have been practicing as it becomes very evident who has, and who has not been.

We do have a overall theme right now, even though I know it is a little contreversial, but first we are working through Tobler's book, then we are doing Ringeck's, with a mixing of Meyer and some of the stuff from the website thrown in as it comes up, but I know that Tobler's book has it's critics so we are taking that for what it is worth. You know all these techniques can be what if'd to death and overall I think it is a very healthy process for WMA, but as a newbie I try not to ask to many questions until I have a basis for it, I must admitt that I am a very visual learner, and I have the hardest time with the decriptions of, things like well, it's a rising schiel from the left then a yada yada, I really have to read those things alot to get them down, so in general I don't and just focus on the techniques I can see a animated sequence on,(for the most part).

As far as my role goes within the group, I am kind of the task-master type, so I like to keep things moving-I cannot imagine working out something for 1/2 hour while the group waits- I would not belong to a group like that for long I am way to type A for that kind of stuff. If there is something like that, I will work it out ahead of time so at least it flows more smoothly before bringing it into the group, I think Provo said once that they have there meetings twice a week with begingers on a day and more advance on another-that seems like a great idea to me.

With new people I always take some time with them right away and have a more advanced member lead the rest through some of the partner drills, which I realized you also have to be careful and make sure you get your reps in as well.

If I had to sum up my philosophy it would be "REPS,REPS" Thats the way I see it, but I also make sure everyone knows I am no expert and that everything is subject to change. Members also will speak up and present things to all of us if they have technique variations or other things they have found.

see you for now time to train! later Aaron

[David Kite]

Well, when I had a group. . .

I suggest working through both Lindholm and Tobler simultaneously. While the differences are there, I think that MOST of them are pretty trivial. Besides that, you can use one to clarify the other.

We also used to do LOTS of free play. I'd say that better than half of each weekly session was free play. Like Jaron and Jeff said, you can to solo stuff on your own. Take advantage of being in a group.

In our group of five there was only one other guy besides me who I could tell practiced on his own, though I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who did anything with the manuals outside class. During class he and I would muddle through a technique or two, then when we thought we had a decent grasp of it, we'd show the others with the understanding that "Well, this is how we think you do this." Everyone was pretty understanding of that.

However, if anyone didn't put much effort into learning during or outside of class, I didn't put much effort into teaching them. I'd help them as long as they put effort into it, but I wasn't going to drag them along and let them hold anyone else back. IMO, if someone doesn't have the drive to practice and learn or the patience, you're not going to be able to give that to them. Just don't waste too much time with them.

Hope that helps some.

David Kite
ARMA in IN

[Jaron Bernstein]

Aaron, David,

It is Jeff the younger since Jeff McCarl is Jeff the "elder"


How much waster free play and how much padded sparring did you do? What was the mix?

In terms of people doing the research, I get the sense that our new folks DO practice a lot of what we "teach". And they do have great energy and fighting spirit. The problem is that we are NOT experts or teachers by any stretch of the imagination but simply fellow students with a bit more time in. So what we are absolutely sure of of (basic cuts) gets boring quickly. And the more advanced stuff (like Meyer's secondary stikes and the like) are things that we have 3 different ideas on, any one of which could be (in)correct. I would like for them to get into the manuals more so they can start to interpret stuff for many reasons.

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Yes, that sounds like what I would also like to see happening, right now we kind of just pass aroud the books and other resources that I have down-loaded,(using many ink cartridges). This is giving us plenty to do..I also wanted to be sure and state that I also see myself as very much a member of the group, with just more time in as well...I am no senior free-scholar by any stretch of the imagination, and do not put myself out there as any expert, but it still is important to lead the group in a direction, which ever approach you may go for. Part of the reason that we spar so infrequently is two fold- currently I pay for just about everything, rent at the dojo, wasters, I had made for the group, materials etc.. including sparring swords, consisting of both padded and home-made--this is a very temp condition especially since we have broken just about every padded sword we have crossed with each other, even with a more"let's take it easy a little and concentrate on technique" it still ends up being sparring with some substantial hits.

I ordered some new padded swords and when those come in, we will spar again, but I am going to mandate that some of them start buying or building thier own.

We do alot of waster free-play as well probaly about 75% of the class time. I still find alot of value in drilling together though, you get a better feel for each other as a group, then just by yourselves that is my personal feeling anyway-- Aaron

[David Kite]

Jaron,

We never got around to making padded weapons, so all of our free play was with wasters. Pretty abusive to the hands, forarms, and elbows, but that was just more incentive to get better, right? <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

Aaron,

I would definitely make everyone provide their own equipment. IMO, that's just too much for one person to provide. Besides, it'll help weed out the dead weight. Having spare equipment is a good idea, though, in case of breakages and any new people that haven't gotten their own yet. After a few practices, though, you should really encourage them getting their own. IMO.

David Kite
ARMA in IN