Drilling and sparring in HEMA, plus commiserations to Skallagrim

Drilling and sparring in HEMA, plus commiserations to Skallagrim

[fanglespangle]

"I use my right hand a lot..."
*starts typing*
"No dirty jokes please."
*stops typing*

[Skallagrim]

Thanks, Matt. And yeah, even though slipping on the crutch and falling was very painful, also on the knee, it's kind of funny indeed. As if a mischievous deity said "Ah, so you think your puny tools will help you? Hah, I'll show you!".

I agree, sparring is indicative of a person's fighting skills but it does not necessarily mean that someone who does well in sparring would fare well in real combat. The stress of a life threatening situation for instance might throw a lot of technique out the window.

Sparring with objective is an excellent idea. Oddly enough that had not occurred to me before but it's definitely worth trying.

[chrisf]

Good points in this video. I especially have noticed the inflated sense of one's performance in totally free-form sparring. A lot of people will remember that one time they pulled off an especially cool technique, forgetting the 6 times they were hit with pedestrian thrusts or cuts while trying to perform it...

[SunMetal]

Hey Matt. I'm reading Swordsmen Of The British Empire and it's great. Those stories are taking up so much of my thinking, I love it. I'm telling my friends about tulwars cleaving skulls and slashing horses. I can't wait to get to the dueling chapter. Can you tell us about D.A. Kinsley? Thanks. I get so much out of your videos.

[jancello]

Thanks a million for this vid. Many of our experienced teachers had to leave the club for various reasons, now we're running it a bit on our own and we find it very difficult to find the balance between research, drilling, sparring... That kind of explanation from a seasoned instractor is priceless !

[IshanDeston]

Reminds me a lot of my karate training. 1/3 was dry kata training, 1/3 was partner training where you would do a set of moves and 1/3 was sparring (after you reached green belt and higher)

[TonberryV]

I've always found that structured sparring is an excellent way to assess and drill the basics or techniques you want to focus on with a particular group. When I used to teach martial arts I would go through basic drills once every couple of weeks to see what my classes would need to work on.

[kefkaZZZ]

Objective based sparring sounds really fun!  Also I found during my time training in Tae Kwon Do that the biggest hurdle to progress was co-operative drilling, where your 'opponent' lets you perform a technique easily.

[JimGiant]

Couldn't agree more.

My class spend about 6 weeks learning techniques and principles before we sparred for the first time and I think it did us a lot of good as we didn't develop too many bad habits.

Some of the later starters were ready to spar earlier because they could train with people who knew what they were doing and were able to correct them rather than waiting for the instructor.

As a more experienced member there is a very fine line between some of the drills and full sparring.

[flektra]

At my Longsword class we do quite a bit of this "free drilling" (Wet drilling as opposed to dry drilling? :D) and I find it really helpful. I couldn't get the hang of binding and winding based solely on "dry" drilling, but with some freedom added to the mix, it's much more easy to understand the mechanics of binding and winding.

[thomasheydenreich]

Hi Matt,
maybe there is also one more form which I indeed very like: in my club we call it "Slowing". It is in essence the freedom of a normal sparring (or with all the kinds of objectives that you mentioned), but with only the most important protection (i.e. Mask, Hand, Throat, maybe Ellbow). Therefore, speed has to be reduced to not injure yourself (and the others).
Slowing is very useful to get in a different mindset as you instantaneously feel more vulnerable (because you ARE without body protection) while still having all your options for fencing. Of course, this is only applicable with people who can safely control the weapon and are really able to slow down in their actions (which is not that easy as it sounds). Additionally, because everything is going a lot slower, you typically have some more time to think about your actions which oftens enlightens you for what to do in some situation.

[Cookiesdiefrombehind]

The exercise you describe, we at our Sanda school have been doing it for years like this. Very nice to see similarities.

[Grammoth]

In the group I am in out here in the US we often do an in between sparring and drilling called thought sparring. It's one of our most useful tools.

[benjohsmi]

I'm inclined to agree with you.  Moreover, this isn't a new problem. Nearly every group that begins without serious guidance moves on to sparring quickly because it is thrilling and "feels" like what people imagine swordfighting is like.  Appreciating the limitations of sparring, and the role it should play in training takes experience to understand.  I always tell my students "Drills build skills, sparring tells you if you are able to use them under pressure."  Of course sparring is necessary for learning courage, timing, distance, the capacity to read an opponent, executing difficult or complicated techniques, but if it is not combined with significant drilling then your actual skills that you can apply in combat don't become refined.  My research into various fighting styles from the 1600s and before indicates that drilling made up the vast majority of training.  In many ancient sword styles sparring makes up a surprisingly small amount of their training.

[CMLew]

What you are talking about is what Matt Thornton refers to as aliveness and is needed for any kind of fight training. Introducing some levels of reistance and timing is a great training method  between dead drilling and fully alive sparring. 

I dont train HEMA (Yet at least) but I am personally like to train technqiues by first learning the motions on a cooperating opponent. Then the opponent offering some resistance so it only works if I do it correct, then the opponent resists more changing up the timing and escaping the technique when possible and then maybe do positional sparring.

I am also a huge fan of objective based sparring not just points but also with asymmetrical goals like you mentioned. One guy trying to grapple and take the other guy down the other trying to stay standing and disengage to use his weapon for example in Hema. One guy trying to disarm the other without getting stabbed, or one guy trying to restrain someone while the other try's to get to the exit of the room. All these are great sparring tools.

Even without formal objectives having something you want to work on is important to sparring. You don't just want to try to win or out point your opponent but to train your skills. For example if you need to work on closing the distance work on going from the outside to the inside quickly during sparring. Sure it may get you, stabbed or hit more often during the sparring session but it allows you to practice against a resisting person.

[tannage]

Drilling helps you learn how to do the movements correctly, if you can't do the movement correctly with the right form, coordination and power, you'll never have a hope of executing it when you're under pressure in sparring or in application.  Also don't forget that nowadays our lives don't depend on HEMA skills, so naturally we don't really NEED to have perfect form and power on our techniques.

[loyalsausages]

Friendly, engaging personality even as he informs and teachers. I would love to have this guy as a college professor :).

[Edvardius]

Thank you for important tips. Me and my firend are going back to fighting and we don't set any objectives or train any techniques. Next time we'll try some of it. :)

[madpearTube]

Even though I do think that sparring is an important part of the training in order to be closer to combat situation (in term of distance as you mentioned, speed, timing, etc) I keep on reminding that Anton Kohutovič began sparring after 2 years of drilling.

[tyjohnston]

Okay, I admit, after having seen Skall's recent video, I had a good chuckle as soon as I saw the title of this video.