Central Florida ARMA Gathering Report

[Mike Cartier]

We held our Florida wide gathering this weekend in Orlando.

We had a great time and drank a little too much beer.

Here is a break down of the weekend.

Saturday
We began just after 10:AM and warmed up with some general longsword introduction for the new folks .

David Knight did a class on the Short-Staff of Paulus Hector Mair. Very interesting stuff and hopefully we will have some videos of David's work on the short staff to show you guys in the coming weeks.

Then yours trule gave an introduction to the Principles of Meyer and a work through of the Primary Guards. We went through the footwork of Meyer and his view of the fight and the application of the primary guards.

Then just before Lunch Jay Vail ran through a quick but very illuminating class on Half-swording.

After Lunch Jay continued on with Fiore's unarmed plays against the Dagger.

Then Mike Ruhala from Tampa gave us an introduction to the
Manual de Baratrero Spanish Knife a wicked long folding knife from Spain used by the gypsies and vagabonds.

We finished of the day with a continuation of Meyer's Longsword with an examination of his Lead or primary strikes, until park close time at 5:PM.



Sunday
After clearing away the hangovers we began again at 10:AM with yours truly running through our introduction to the sword & Buckler, for this we used the excellent work of Jeffrey Hull for our guards and worked our way through most of the 25 S&B counters from the members side guide.

Once warmed up it was time to bang away and we did it with gusto, mostly longsword vs longsword or sword & buckler vs sword and buckler. Although Jay did a little dagger vs longsword and others did some sword & shield vs longsword sparring.

our first set of sparring videos is available on ARMA-SFL website Event Longsword Videos

We will have some more videos (longsword & S&B sparring) and pictures from the event soon.

All in all it was a great event which achieved everything we wanted, lots of training, lots of sparring and introducing new folks to the world of ARMA and HEMA.
We also hopefully helped establish some interest in a Central Florida ARMA Group.

[David_Knight]

Excellent gathering, but yes, we drank entirely too much beer. Grappling with a hangover is not for the faint of heart.

One correction to Mike's chronology: we started with Mike's introduction to Meyer, basic footwork & the ARMA Primary Strikes/Guards. Then my PHM shortstaff class followed by Jay Vail's instruction on halfswording techniques. I wanted to point this out because the staffwork flowed very naturally into Jay's halfsword class; the basic principles and footwork are very similar.

It's also worth noting that we expiramented with defensive halfsword vs. offensive longsword sparring with interesting results. The defender was generally able to disarm the attacker but unable to execute a counterattack before being taken to the ground. Not sure if we got any video footage of this, unfortunately.

Turnout was better than last time, too, with over a dozen people showing up in total.

[John_Clements]

Sounds Great guys, way to go Mike. Wish some of us inthe South could have been able to make down there. We'll have to try to attend next time. It would have been great to see what David has from his PHM translations. Glad to know everyone was able to do so much. Congrats.

JC

[Jay Vail]

I'd like to second what Mike and David have said. It was a great two days, especially Sunday, when we had a really strenous three hours banging away at each other.

Also, David had make excellent progress in interpreting Mair's staff. It was a wonderful staff session, and went well with Stacy's Meyer staff interpretation, which he unveiled in New Orleans.

Thanks to Mike for organizing everything.

Great work, guys, and can't wait till the next one.

[JeanryChandler]

Man, I'm sorry I couldn't make it down there.

I watched some of those clips, I was very impressed, and man, Jay, you sure move fast for an old fella! Seriously, your longsword technique seems to have improved quite a bit, I was delighted, not only with the speed but precision and agility, and good form of you and most of the fighters. I was wondering about that sword you were using... Do you still have that longsword I gave you at SK?

Kudos to Mike and all the rest of the guys for putting it together, it looks like it was a great event! I hope we can do another one around here some time soon.

Jeanry

[Lance Chan]

Nice videos! I'm glad to see a wide range of distance and the inclusion of some fine targeting. Some of you guys are lightning fast, like Eston. Dave H seems to have problem with his blade alignment, though.

[Lance Chan]

I also like how the swords looked. <img src="/forum/images/icons/laugh.gif" alt="" />

[Jay Vail]

you sure move fast for an old fella! Seriously, your longsword technique seems to have improved quite a bit, I was delighted, not only with the speed but precision and agility, and good form of you and most of the fighters.

Thanks. I may be old but I am still bad. <img src="/forum/images/icons/cool.gif" alt="" />

Do you still have that longsword I gave you at SK?

Yes indeed. A great sword and very popular Sunday. It has held up well, but it got a really hard workout that day and is now battered and showing its age. I'll need a replacement soon.

[Mike Cartier]

i can certainly testify to Jay's oldness and badness, he gave me a good whoopin on the first fight of the day.
DaveH did hasve some alignment problems, he had only trained with us once before and this was his first time sparring, so i think he did really well.
He had lots of power though which was tricky to deal with at times. If your hanging guard was without proper form his blows would smash right through.

I personally really felt the lack of attention we have given to sparring in our group the last few months as we were focused alot more on form. Regular sparring really helps the mind with processing for fighting. i seemed to be reacting too instinctively and really didn't try enough strikes &amp; combos and my defensive footwork was to linear.

I was actually happy to have used a few of Meyers reverse or stolen steps and I pulled off a nice Wechselhauw from meyer once that we did not get on camera.

There was some nice grappling between John and David, which i think someone else got on camera. My digital filled up fast.

[JeanryChandler]

Yes indeed. A great sword and very popular Sunday. It has held up well, but it got a really hard workout that day and is now battered and showing its age. I'll need a replacement soon.

Wow, I'm delighted to hear that! I thought I recognized that sword, I'm real glad to hear it has made it this far, all the way since Southern Knights. I'll be glad to make you another, I'll be making a batch of new weapons probably next month.

I really regret not getting it together to get down there, I'd really like to see you guys again. Glad to see you advancing so well in technique. Did you try any of your newly researched (I assume Fiore?) half-swording in the sparring?

I have a little bit in the next series of video clips from our group which I'll probably be posting later tonight. We are just at the very beginning of learning this though, and would benefit enormously from a good interpretation...

alas, we are the blind leading the blind here in the big easy...

(have to organize another event!)

Jeanry

[davidnewquist]

what are alignment problems?

[Lance Chan]

hitting with the flat, instead of edges with proper tracking path to penetrate the target. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> But for the first time, I think he did incredibly well already!

[Jay Vail]

I pulled off a nice Wechselhauw from meyer once that we did not get on camera.

Yes, my head is still ringing.

[Jay Vail]

Did you try any of your newly researched (I assume Fiore?) half-swording in the sparring?

I did not, but John did, which resulted in the aforementioned wrestling.

[Mike Cartier]

I have been calling that guy Dave H when in fact its Dave N
He is Dave Newquist.

Sorry Dave.