The importance of a Pell
Dec 4, 2006 22:02:10 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2006 22:02:10 GMT
You will be far better off owning a cheaper sword that you know how to use then owning an expensive one that looks pretty but only collects dust. One way to warm up to a sword is to build a pell and practice swinging at it. A pell should be something that offers some stiff resistance but at the same time does not wear your sword or waster. I have found that tires make excellant cheep pells. I also came up with the idea of passing broom sticks througth the tires to create the sword of an opponent. This is what it looks like.
You can see the full webpage here: mysite.verizon.net/tsafa1/pell/index.htm
Aother training method I use is a tennis ball pell. I use this to develop point control. It has been very effective, particularly for my rapier fighting. This is what it looks like:
You can see the full webpage with some short videos related to point control drills here:
mysite.verizon.net/tsafa1/g2blackprince/index.htm
The pell is a good way to get familiar with your sword but in order to learn how to fight will will have to join some organization that will teach you how to that you can practice on an ongoing basis.
One such organization is the SCA. There you will learn sword and shield, great sword, two sword, pollarms, rapier, archery. You can even learn medieval cooking, caligraphy and needel point if you like. It is realy a great organization. the fees are minimal. I pay $5 per practice session. Here is their website:
www.sca.org/
The hits are at full power and speed. You fight in full armor. The rattan wasters come very close the the feel of the actual weapons. The SCA is an international organization with over 100,000 members so there should be a group near every major city. If you go view just one practice or event and talk to a few people you will gain a wealth of information. I will attemp to give you an overview.
While the fighters in the SCA may be wearing 15th century armor for the sake of not getting killed... for targeting purpuses we assume that we are not in armor or lightly armored. That means that the whole body from the knee up is a tager area (not including the hands). The hits must be hard enough to be felt through the armor rather then just touches or slices. So it would not be fair to say that we are assuming that we are not armored at all but rather lightly armored. Perhaps with leather or mail. If we wanted to recognize that we are fully armored as we are in fact, then we change to rules so that only thrust under the armpit, to the face plate, and inside the knee and elbow joints count.
Given that we are assuming that we are lightly armored we only have the actual weapon and sheild to defend ourselves. This is inline with the style of fighting that would be used in the darkages. The first thing you will notice if you attend a practice is that a shield is a great defense. An experianced fighter can block over 95% of attacks even a relativly new figher can block over 70% of attacks. If you switch to a twohand weapon or two weapons the hit rates go way up.
Hear are some things to keep in mind with the shield that become clear from practical fighting experiance. The mid section is protected verywell so the main target area is the head and thigh. A person must maintain eye contact at all times so head is very exposed. The whole stratagy is how to around the shield. The basic way is a horizontal onside-snap that goes "horizontaly" accross the top of the shield to the head. Pointing the top corner of the shield up momentariy will block that while maintaining visibility. Diagonal or vertical attacks are almost never usefull because they will hit the shield before they hit the head. The second basic attack is an off-side snap. This is an attack to the opposite side executed by raising the elbow up over you opponents shield line and letting you hand drop to the left if you are right handed. The key to these attacks is that they are snaps. We are not cutting through plastic water bottles here (which in fact develops bad fighting form). You are whiping you blade out and then bringing it back very quickly rather then trying to carry through to make some type of deep cut. The next basic strike is your wrap shot. Here you are using the back edge of the sword to get around the shield by bending the elbow in. This is usualy done with a step to the side of the shield. If done straight over head it is know as a "scorpion" attack. If it is done straight down under his sword arm and up to his upper back or head you are "splitting the grass". Wraps to the back of the leg are very effective too. They are also painful because a lot of people don't have armor back there, lol. There are some other trick shots too, but these are the basics. You can trust me when I tell you that it takes a lot of practice to get them right. You can only learn to do them from someone that knows and can watch you and correct your form. The power of all these shots originate from the lower body and hips. The arms just guide the sword in to hit the mark. One of the hardest shots is a thrust. A thrust is hard to aim and hard to generate enough force in a fight for a beginer. You can not generate a good hard thrust by leading with the sword as you do with a rapier (I have even more extensive experiance with the rapier). In sword and shield you lead with the shield. A thust will only be effective if it starts from the hip. This is easy to see so you can only do it in a fight in combination with other shots. If you misses you go straight into and on or offside snap.
The first thing a newbie must learn is how to through his on side snap while keeping his shield tighly in accross his body. It sounds obvious and easy to do, but it requires a lot of practice so you do it automaticly without thinking. The natual thing to do is pull you arm back for balance when you through one arm forward. That will get you killed. You should never pick up a single hand sword to swing it around unless you have a shield in the other hand. The two work together and even restrict one another to some extent. You shield will also create a blind spots that change as you move it around. You must know where those are and anticipate being attacked from that direction because an experianced opponent will attack you from there. You own shield also creates blind spots for your opponent too. Sometimes I keep my sword behind my shield so it can not be seen. From there I can raise the bottom of the shield up and attack his thigh or do a scorpion over both my shield and his to his head. Usualy I can not see my opponents legs because it is in my blind spot, that is where experiance comes in, I just know were his legs are and his shield relative to his legs.
Next thing I will mantion is the actual weapons themselves. The shields come in all sorts of diffrent sizes and shapes. I recommend you start with a basic heater. Shoulder width wide and a length from you chin to your croch. Use a diagonal straping on the inside with a hard handle. Down the road you can experiment with other styles. This the the one most fighter use and the one that you will be able to get the best instruction on. The sword most fighter use is about 3 lbs. with length that is as long as posible without hitting the ground. That is what you should start with too. I personly prefer 3 lbs 8 oz. I find that I can make more effective blows with less effort by twisting the hips as I discused earlier. When fighting against a pole arm or two hand sword, I prefer a 3 lb 12 sword. That is just my personal preference. Most people will only only block a polearm with their shield. That is what the pikeman expects. I often trick him by beating his pike to the side with my heavy sword, transfering the pike to my shield and and then stepping in with a thrust. You can only use a heavy sword effectivly if you learn to use your hips effectivly. The arm does little work. Often times I will just rest it on my sholder and stike an on side snap striaght from there.
I lot of what I told you is somewhat simplified so I can put it in writting. It will be more clear if you go to an SCA event and try these technics in person.
You can see the full webpage here: mysite.verizon.net/tsafa1/pell/index.htm
Aother training method I use is a tennis ball pell. I use this to develop point control. It has been very effective, particularly for my rapier fighting. This is what it looks like:
You can see the full webpage with some short videos related to point control drills here:
mysite.verizon.net/tsafa1/g2blackprince/index.htm
The pell is a good way to get familiar with your sword but in order to learn how to fight will will have to join some organization that will teach you how to that you can practice on an ongoing basis.
One such organization is the SCA. There you will learn sword and shield, great sword, two sword, pollarms, rapier, archery. You can even learn medieval cooking, caligraphy and needel point if you like. It is realy a great organization. the fees are minimal. I pay $5 per practice session. Here is their website:
www.sca.org/
The hits are at full power and speed. You fight in full armor. The rattan wasters come very close the the feel of the actual weapons. The SCA is an international organization with over 100,000 members so there should be a group near every major city. If you go view just one practice or event and talk to a few people you will gain a wealth of information. I will attemp to give you an overview.
While the fighters in the SCA may be wearing 15th century armor for the sake of not getting killed... for targeting purpuses we assume that we are not in armor or lightly armored. That means that the whole body from the knee up is a tager area (not including the hands). The hits must be hard enough to be felt through the armor rather then just touches or slices. So it would not be fair to say that we are assuming that we are not armored at all but rather lightly armored. Perhaps with leather or mail. If we wanted to recognize that we are fully armored as we are in fact, then we change to rules so that only thrust under the armpit, to the face plate, and inside the knee and elbow joints count.
Given that we are assuming that we are lightly armored we only have the actual weapon and sheild to defend ourselves. This is inline with the style of fighting that would be used in the darkages. The first thing you will notice if you attend a practice is that a shield is a great defense. An experianced fighter can block over 95% of attacks even a relativly new figher can block over 70% of attacks. If you switch to a twohand weapon or two weapons the hit rates go way up.
Hear are some things to keep in mind with the shield that become clear from practical fighting experiance. The mid section is protected verywell so the main target area is the head and thigh. A person must maintain eye contact at all times so head is very exposed. The whole stratagy is how to around the shield. The basic way is a horizontal onside-snap that goes "horizontaly" accross the top of the shield to the head. Pointing the top corner of the shield up momentariy will block that while maintaining visibility. Diagonal or vertical attacks are almost never usefull because they will hit the shield before they hit the head. The second basic attack is an off-side snap. This is an attack to the opposite side executed by raising the elbow up over you opponents shield line and letting you hand drop to the left if you are right handed. The key to these attacks is that they are snaps. We are not cutting through plastic water bottles here (which in fact develops bad fighting form). You are whiping you blade out and then bringing it back very quickly rather then trying to carry through to make some type of deep cut. The next basic strike is your wrap shot. Here you are using the back edge of the sword to get around the shield by bending the elbow in. This is usualy done with a step to the side of the shield. If done straight over head it is know as a "scorpion" attack. If it is done straight down under his sword arm and up to his upper back or head you are "splitting the grass". Wraps to the back of the leg are very effective too. They are also painful because a lot of people don't have armor back there, lol. There are some other trick shots too, but these are the basics. You can trust me when I tell you that it takes a lot of practice to get them right. You can only learn to do them from someone that knows and can watch you and correct your form. The power of all these shots originate from the lower body and hips. The arms just guide the sword in to hit the mark. One of the hardest shots is a thrust. A thrust is hard to aim and hard to generate enough force in a fight for a beginer. You can not generate a good hard thrust by leading with the sword as you do with a rapier (I have even more extensive experiance with the rapier). In sword and shield you lead with the shield. A thust will only be effective if it starts from the hip. This is easy to see so you can only do it in a fight in combination with other shots. If you misses you go straight into and on or offside snap.
The first thing a newbie must learn is how to through his on side snap while keeping his shield tighly in accross his body. It sounds obvious and easy to do, but it requires a lot of practice so you do it automaticly without thinking. The natual thing to do is pull you arm back for balance when you through one arm forward. That will get you killed. You should never pick up a single hand sword to swing it around unless you have a shield in the other hand. The two work together and even restrict one another to some extent. You shield will also create a blind spots that change as you move it around. You must know where those are and anticipate being attacked from that direction because an experianced opponent will attack you from there. You own shield also creates blind spots for your opponent too. Sometimes I keep my sword behind my shield so it can not be seen. From there I can raise the bottom of the shield up and attack his thigh or do a scorpion over both my shield and his to his head. Usualy I can not see my opponents legs because it is in my blind spot, that is where experiance comes in, I just know were his legs are and his shield relative to his legs.
Next thing I will mantion is the actual weapons themselves. The shields come in all sorts of diffrent sizes and shapes. I recommend you start with a basic heater. Shoulder width wide and a length from you chin to your croch. Use a diagonal straping on the inside with a hard handle. Down the road you can experiment with other styles. This the the one most fighter use and the one that you will be able to get the best instruction on. The sword most fighter use is about 3 lbs. with length that is as long as posible without hitting the ground. That is what you should start with too. I personly prefer 3 lbs 8 oz. I find that I can make more effective blows with less effort by twisting the hips as I discused earlier. When fighting against a pole arm or two hand sword, I prefer a 3 lb 12 sword. That is just my personal preference. Most people will only only block a polearm with their shield. That is what the pikeman expects. I often trick him by beating his pike to the side with my heavy sword, transfering the pike to my shield and and then stepping in with a thrust. You can only use a heavy sword effectivly if you learn to use your hips effectivly. The arm does little work. Often times I will just rest it on my sholder and stike an on side snap striaght from there.
I lot of what I told you is somewhat simplified so I can put it in writting. It will be more clear if you go to an SCA event and try these technics in person.