Building Drills

Reviewing tournament footage, and I can see a student has a repeat problem: they start to execute an attack, and for whatever reason it fails. The problem isn't the failure so much as they kinda tend to hang out for a beat or two while they think of the next thing to do. Or whatever, I have no idea what's in their mind, and I don't really care. I just don't want it to happen again, because for this student, they tend to get a bonked reminder that it is not a good place to be.

How do I coach a change in this behaviour?

I can go a tell them it's a bad idea, maybe show them video footage. When I think they understand what I'm talking about, I can explain a better approach, and then come up with a series of drills for them to do to change the habit. These drills will be based off of what I see as the issue, and the solution. I will present it one step at a time, in a series of increasingly complex drills, because I am an awesome fencer and know all the cool stuff, and I will be loved as a coach.

Ah, the smell of fresh horseshit in the morning. Coaches love to feel like they are doing something, and breaking things down and making drills just feels productive, you know? Getting stabbed in the arm? Let's make a drill where your opponent does an extension towards your arm, and then you parry, and then riposte! Then we'll start from a lunge, etc. It feels like the right thing to do because it kinda works, and it kinda fits in to how every martial art and class is taught, and it's what the student expects, right? You are transmitting a system of technique built up from drills, something they can memorize. Drills can be recalled when the right situation presents itself. If the opponent does paper, you do scissors!

It works for some students. But honestly, those students are the same ones would probably find their own solution anyway. The coach is just there for cultural permission.

What's missing is...everything. The whole context of what happens in the tournament, just doesn't exist in the drill. The important context is what we as coaches can't see, that exists outside of technique. The student went in to the combat feeling like they were going to win, land a touch, whatever...and got a stiff reminder that they were a failure. That even good instruction didn't work, because they weren't good enough. And the more you teach the drill, the more the student learns "Wow, I really did lose because I'm a failure, I couldn't even do these simple things in the first place?!?"

Worst case isn't the student eventually quitting and walking away, worst case is the student thinking the coach is the true source of wisdom and the student is a failure, and they just have to somehow learn even more of the coaches wisdom, because coach is brilliant and wonderful and student will never ever ever be as brilliant as coach...I mean, you know where this goes. You might have even seen it in your students and done your damndest to kill it before it gets too deep. That's a whole other discussion though.

What we want to do is set up a situation where the student learns what the correct failure is, where it wasn't something inside them or how they thought, but in something they hadn't been exposed to before.

Given this hypothetical situation, what I'm going to do is set up a drill that recreates the failure point, and I'm going to let the student work their own way out of it, find their own success. As a coach, I'm going to follow the cardinal rule of teaching swordplay: Every time I open my mouth, I'm stealing from the students learning time. Steal as little as you can.

Mark out the contact zone on the floor. That is, the space between the two fencers where either one can land a hit with a single step. A is the challenger, B is the tax collector. For A to score a point, they have to enter the zone, land a hit, and EXIT the zone before getting hit back. B gets two points if they land a hit while A is in the zone. A gets a half point if they enter the zone, draw a reaction and safely exit.

More complexity and conditions can be added, but that's the basic drill. Students will take turns being A and B, and pairs rotate after four or five exchanges...we don't want them picking up specific tells against one opponent, but rather building up their own skill set regardless of what the opponent brings.

Something we don't want to with this, is make it into tournament rules. That's a dumb idea. It's a drill for a singular skill set, something that should be done only as needed. It's a flaw for a tournament organizer to think that this sort of thing represents the epitome of fencing. That leads down the path to all kinds of horsepucky like devaluing some valid problem solving skills in preference to others.

For example, let's look at how we might modify this drills to represent Viedma and Marozzo's styles.

For Viedma, we'll have two zones (Medio de proporcion/proporcianado for the nerds). In the inner zone, the A student is allowed to hang out, but only if they have atajo or have otherwise subjected the sword. If engagement is lost, then B is free to gain a double point by hitting them before they exit. For more fun, we can stipulate that A can't exit straight back.

For Marozzo, everyone of A's touches...thrust or cut...must end in a named position to count. And they must exit with a covering blow of some kind.

Notice how both approaches have the same goal as the first drill, but could be considered invalid by one of the other systems? That's the failure a tournament can introduce. Something to be aware of.

Also notice how you can take a nice little modern constraints/environment-whatever this kids call it these days fencing drill, and add in a few extra touches to guide the student into replicating a historical style without you, the coach, having to stand around with your mouth open a lot? Yeah. That's the fun stuff.

Go have fun.

I'd love to see some examples of how you build drills to "trick" students into doing historical fencing in your styles. I know some of you are doing it!