Anecdotal Cross Training Experience

[Sal Bertucci]

Now William,

I think we both agree about what we're talking about, and respect each other's stance on the subject. As such I'm not really talking to you in this next comment, but our conversation reminded me of this so due to the amount of lurkers on forums this seems like a good thing to be said.

This is pointing out the difference of which lens you use that I mentioned earlier.

I was the only one that showed up to practice that day (It happens sometimes), but there happened to be an Aikido group there doing a demo. As such one of their other members and I got to the sidelines and did some comparative dagger defense.

I was showing the "2nd scholar of the 3rd Remedy Master" (Totally just looked that one up), and he gave the advise that in order to make the technique more effective I should "cradle" the opponents arm. He also provided a demonstration.

While I could see that what he was doing is effective, it's NOT what Fiore is telling us to do. So that wasn't a viable interpretation to this technique for me.

This is mainly just an example of how, while cross training can have some benefits, if not done properly it can lead to an incorrect interpretation.

[william_cain_iii]

Indeed, I can see exactly what you mean by this anecdote, and understand what you are trying to accomplish by being cautious about such advice.

And I don't even have a 'but' to add I'm taking the example in the spirit it's intended, and find it very useful indeed.

[Stacy Clifford]

Sal explained it exactly the way I meant it. While you can almost bet that somewhere in Europe, somebody tried every possible permutation of a technique at some point, you can't use that to say that whatever you come up with is historically valid (even if it actually is). Fiore himself might have known the version of the technique that the aikido guy showed Sal, but if he didn't put it in his book then we can't confirm that it's part of Fiore's method. It may be compatible with Fiore's principles, but since Fiore shows a lot of specific techniques, you have to be a little more careful and take a narrower view. On the flip side, Di Grassi shows relatively few specific techniques and talks a great deal about general principles, so you've got more latitude to interpret outside the list of techniques in the book as long as you don't violate his core principles. Even so, the only techniques I can say for absolute certain are historically valid are the the ones Di Grassi describes directly; everything else is educated speculation. You can do the same with any manual, just to a greater or lesser degree depending on how the teaching is structured.

[william_cain_iii]

I very much agree with you. I think where we differ is in what we desire to focus on.

ARMA, as I see from your posts, desires to do what is in the manuals, and pretty much only what is in the manuals, as much as possible, as a matter of academic rigor.

Myself, I wish to develop as a martial artist in general. In looking at the Fiore grappling material, he doesn't really go into balance breaking or the continual movement that is a part of a grappling art. Yet as a knight, he would have had wrestling training - it was just assumed. So clearly he assumes a certain level of knowledge would be 'filled in' and that his techniques were applications to using a base his students would have.

So principles such as pulling a person upward to change their centre of gravity, or hauling them forward then shoving them back to do the same, aren't explicitly covered, and since I don't know them, I have to go elsewhere to fill the material in.

As for the specific example - I agree you cannot say that the cradling of the arm is definitively fiore, and it would be dangerous to say it's 'probably' or 'in the spirit of' fiore. However, there's nothing wrong with -teaching- it as I see it, as long as you clearly and unequivocally say "THIS part is definitely what Fiore has taught us, this is a variation we see in another martial art. here is what this variation can teach us," etc.

Again, ARMA doesn't choose to go this route, and I can see why. It raises the potential spectre of infinite-ifs, which no teacher ever wants to deal with! And it does raise the problem of continual challenges to the legitimacy of an interpretation if people can say "that's not in manual X..." when you try to teach it.

So from an authority of scholarship perspective I definitely see the value.

[Stacy Clifford]

Myself, I wish to develop as a martial artist in general. In looking at the Fiore grappling material, he doesn't really go into balance breaking or the continual movement that is a part of a grappling art. Yet as a knight, he would have had wrestling training - it was just assumed. So clearly he assumes a certain level of knowledge would be 'filled in' and that his techniques were applications to using a base his students would have.

We want to develop as martial artists too, we just take a different approach that's a little more difficult. Instead of filling in from modern martial arts, we use the combined studies of many historical manuals to do roughly the same job. Fiore might not mention continual movement, but he does say that he studied under German masters, and many of the German manuals DO talk about continual movement. We do individual research to get the specifics of a given manual, and guys like John Clements and Aaron Pynenberg who have been able to work through many such manuals over time combine that knowledge to create a general teaching curriculum for learning to fight, which in turn feeds back into helping us better understand specific manuals. As I said, it's more difficult keeping it a closed system with historical sources only and takes longer to get there, but I think the end result will ultimately be similar to your approach. Glad to see we understand each other, I fully respect the way you're doing it as well to achieve the goals you've stated. It's all about where you want to go.

[william_cain_iii]

Heck yeah. And I would love to cross swords sometime, maybe go for some ringen with the both of you.

I thing what it boils down to for me is that I have no problem with anyone's approach to anything - so long as they are 100% honest with themselves about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and most importantly what they are not doing.

We all seem to agree on that.

Thanks for a great discussion. I look forward to more on the topic in the future sometime.