Although seeking a consistent structure and perhaps displaying a banner are ideas that I support, I humbly caution against doing things solely for the benefit of observers. The purpose of training is to benefit each person engaged in the training, not to increase the potential of recruitment. Although attracting more people to WMA would be great, we should not train in such a way as to make the sights and sounds more attractive unless it benefits the learning and practice of the martial artists involved.
Agreed, and I think that we can definitely find some happy mediums in that respect.
For example, I really like Houston's "white tshirts in back, red tshirts in front" concept because it serves many practical functions:
- It gives newcomers that are not self-starters the short term goal of "earning" their red shirt, thereby motivating them to learn the basic foundation of the ARMA curriculum.
- It visually separates beginners from more advanced students in an obvious way, which is useful for PR purposes because it fulfills the public's "visual signs of rank" expectation (without overemphasizing rank).
- It provides the basis for a class structure that is conducive to teaching; a beginner standing behind an advanced student will instantly know who to watch and be able to mimic someone who is facing the same direction as they are, while the study group leader can continue to face the class and make corrections.
Repeating guards and strikes aloud during basic cut exercises is useful because:
- It is a proven, highly effective way to drill that information into everyone's memory
- It encourages deep breathing, expands the diaphragm, encourages enthusiasm, and increases confidence, all of which are important to a fighter.
- It draws positive attention to our group by fulfilling another expectation of martial arts schools: the "kiai!", verbal acknowledgement of instruction, etc., which again is found in the Western military tradition as well as EMA.
...is there any extant record of what a typical day in fechschul looked like?
Excellent question. I have been unable to find any records of actual training techniques. Most of the writing I've found on the Marxbruder and other guilds discusses their training only in a very general sense. In fact, to my knowledge there is very little record of actual medieval military training regimens... Does anyone know of a good source?
To be able to compete at the sharp (ok, bad pun) end of things. I don't care so much if we have pretty uniforms and compete with the beauty of our garments or manners. I DO care if you put us the salle with an EMA guy we can hold our own and then some. Hell even in the EMA world there are many arts that don't really go for the "costume" stuff. My taiji instructor work sweatpants and t-shirt. I wrestle in blue jeans (that is what I would be wearing in real life application so I train that way).
Not advocating costumes. Just something along the lines of what Houston is doing. I've trained in an EMA school that favors sweatpants and tshirts instead of traditional garb, and I preferred it. I don't want to give up my exercise gear. I agree that our ultimate goal is being able to hold our own in a fight, but unfortunately there are a lot of people who become interested in martial arts for other reasons (exercise, discipline, self-confidence, whatever). If we cannot meet all of these expectations, then we will always be a "historical swordfighting group", not a "martial arts group." It may not be right, it may not be fair, but it's reality.
A significant number of people interested in WMA are not interested in EMA and prefer an informal approach. And they regard things like excessive deference to leaders, regimentation, titles, rigid uniform requirements, and formality in general as unnecessary bs. Start incorporating such things and you may attract some people, but you will also repel others.
As Katherine wrote in one of the first posts, we don't seem to be attracting as "martial" a crowd as we'd like, and I believe this is largely due to our lack of an appropriately martial structure throughout the organization.
The mystical pomp and circumstance of EMA
is unnecessary, and yes there are many study groups that are too small or lack experience, but a large group with no discernible structure gets no respect. Again, that's just the way it is. Furthermore, I would question why we bother to distinguish ourselves as the most "hardcore" WMA organization if we are as a whole unwilling to really set ourselves apart from the rest and acknowledge that we are learning historical
combat arts; it is appropriate, IMO, to train for what was a knight's art by incorporating certain functional training concepts from our military heritage, which in the US is a combination of British and Prussian traditions that ultimately descend from Rome and Greece. We don't have to take it to extremes, but there is a very clear precedent in our history for structured training. How can we selectively pick and choose which aspects of historical European fighting systems we should preserve and expect to be taken seriously?
Well, I think that's enough ranting and raving for one morning...
