Curriculum
Our curriculum has four focus areas:
- Martial basics: balance, movement, power generation, and adaptation
- Close-combat capabilities using empty-hand and dagger techniques
- Backsword, a basket-hilted sword popular in 16th Century England. George Silver, an English swordmaster, published on the topic, including his Paradoxes of Defence.
- Longsword, a two-handed sword with a simple crossbar. Longsword is the most popular weapon type in historical European martial arts (HEMA). It was used in Europe and Britain during the 14th-16th centuries. Club material is sourced from Fiore dei Liberi’s Fior di battaglia.
Purpose
A curriculum should help participants improve, and it should help the training group achieve cohesive practices.
It provides structure and a common language. Participants of different abilities can work together, stay engaged, and gain skill at their levels. With known drills, we can spend less time explaining and more time training.
You are unique, with your own body characteristics, learning style, skill level, experiences, and goals. You need to make the art work for yourself.
Foundations
- Stance stability
- Grounding-line drills, elbow positioning
- Balance/pressure adaptation drills
- Free movement with an opponent, distancing, openings
- Off-balancing and balance recovery drills
Sword footwork
- In-place turn
- Mezza volta
- Shuffling
- Passing
- Tutta volta / compass-step variations
- Fiore stances and guards drill, solo and with partner
- Passare de la strada
- Box step
- Point step
Close combat
- Wrestling clinches
- Arm locks
- Setups for throws
- Dagger catches
- Striking with the dagger in two grips
- Pad work with palm sticks
- Fiore’s five defensive responses: disarm, strike, lock, break, and throw
- Fiore’s three offensive countermeasures: hit around, interfere with the catch, double up
- First-master dagger plays: disarms, middle key lock, lower key counterattack, over the neck throw
- Third master: armbar, disarm, outside over the neck throw
- Fourth master: figure-four lock
- Fifth master: elbow and shoulder locks
- Sixth master (dagger vs dagger): blocks, pressure redirects
- Eighth master (dagger vs dagger): elbow push
- Ninth master: disarm and strike, redirect to the ground, puppy-dog tail
Backsword
- Literature review and terminology
- Short footwork: shuffling in four directions, passing
- Silver true times and distance implications
- Four actions of the attack: bent, spent, lying spent, drawing back
- Fights: open fight, guardant fight, close fight
- Forehand ward and applications
- Bastard guardant ward and applications
- Attacks out of open fight
- Transitions among open fight, guardant fight, wards
- Hand-hunting pair drills exploring true and false times
- Basic form and applications
Longsword
- Literature review and terminology
- Sword grips and transitions
- Striking and thrusting mechanics with one and two hands
- Stable guards: Posta donna, tutta porta di ferro, dente di cingharo, fenestra sinestra, fenstra destra
- Unstable guards: posta frontale, posta longa, poste breve, bicorno
- Attacks: fendendentes from each side, sottano, stabs, mezzanos
- Turns around the middle of the sword
- Box step, parry and counterattack
- Seven crossings drill
- Plays from the master of sword in one hand
- Plays from the master of zhogo largo (long-range)
- Plays from the master of zhogo stretto (grappling-distance)
- Asymetrical conflicts (sword vs. dagger, sword vs. spear)