Teaching an old dog new tricks.

[Sal Bertucci]

Ok, I'm coming from a sport fencing background, and while I'm not terrible at fighting in the round I have defiantly noticed that I spend more time going back and forth on one plane. I'm wondering if there is a more effective way of getting out of that habit, or drills to help instill the new footwork. I know that there are others with the same background, So I was wondering what worked best for them, or any other suggestions?

[Richard Strey]

You can do drills where you evade/counter an attack with a forward ore sideways motion to get the movement down. Then, you can stand with your back towards a wall and have a partner attack you "freestyle". That will force you to not move backwards.

[Sal Bertucci]

That's a good idea. Thanks.

[Brent Lambell]

Sal, I recommend the pell. My stepping became much more versatile and dynamic after working on a pell. The stationary nature forces you to hone distance, power and edge alignment in addition to creating a target around which you must move. This is far preferable to an invisible target that does not force you to adapt to its location or movement.

For solo cutting drills I will often just swing the sword in a basic figure eight, maintaining good form, and run through some of the basic steps like passing forward and back, simple step forward and back, gathering step, great step and most importantly for your question, I try and traverse consistently.

I hope that helps.

[Sal Bertucci]

I've just started trying ARMA, so this is what I'm doing: I'm mostly just trying to go through the stances of Ox, Plow, Fool, Roof, and Tail (not in any order) and try to make smooth transitions between them. Also, I have friends that belong to local LARPs or just like to beat each other up. I practice striking from the forms on them here. I'm hoping that beating the snot out of them might raise an interest. I've been moderately successful at winning the sparing matches with them, so I think I'm proving my point.

Are there any drawbacks anyone sees with this or warnings they would like to give?

[ChristineChurches]

My advice would be this: stay true to historical form instead of fighting your friends' fight. I have learned more from freeplay where I have been hit, but stuck to the techniques and figured out what I could have done better...and then used it next time.

[Jay Vail]

You can do drills where you evade/counter an attack with a forward ore sideways motion to get the movement down. Then, you can stand with your back towards a wall and have a partner attack you "freestyle". That will force you to not move backwards.

Jay's training tip 14 (for what it's worth):

If you have a heavy bag, stand so that when the bag is motionless you are almost touching it. Give the bag a vigorous push forward. When it swings back at you, practice your evading footwork so that the bag doesn't hit you. Keep it swinging and keep evading. Do each set of footwork steps 50 times.

At first, you will concentrate on your feet until you get them right. After that concentrate on the bag. Concentrating on the bag is useful because it builds your "enemy perception".

After you have this down, start carrying a sword while you do it.

Practice offensive off line footwork against a pell, which can be a hanging heavy bag, a post, a tree, a person, whatever.

[Shane Smith]

You can do drills where you evade/counter an attack with a forward ore sideways motion to get the movement down. Then, you can stand with your back towards a wall and have a partner attack you "freestyle". That will force you to not move backwards.

Jay's training tip 14 (for what it's worth):

If you have a heavy bag, stand so that when the bag is motionless you are almost touching it. Give the bag a vigorous push forward. When it swings back at you, practice your evading footwork so that the bag doesn't hit you. Keep it swinging and keep evading. Do each set of footwork steps 50 times.

At first, you will concentrate on your feet until you get them right. After that concentrate on the bag. Concentrating on the bag is useful because it builds your "enemy perception".

After you have this down, start carrying a sword while you do it.

Practice offensive off line footwork against a pell, which can be a hanging heavy bag, a post, a tree, a person, whatever.

I respect Jay highly and have to say his advice here on this issue strikes me as solid.

If you have no heavy bag and want to coordinate your hands and feet, a half-full two liter bottle hanging from a tree branch on a rope works pretty well...and you can practice your ranging by landing modest blows with your waster on it as it jolts around at random. This will let you get your feet working, your range dialed in and your neighbors scratching their heads