What exercises to stay sharp? (SCA)

[Henry of Bexley]

So, I've managed to get myself into a bit of a sticky wicket- for the next two months I have obligations that will prevent me from attending fighter practices with any sort of regularity because of inconsiderate scheduling... and there's no getting out of it honorably. This is rather discouraging as the last time I missed 3 weeks in a row it felt like I'd lost 3 months of practice as I'm relatively new to this. I am, however, in the position of having many of my days relatively free and a couple siblings around at any given time...

Other than pell work, which I already do, are there any excercises you all would recommend to mitigate the loss of what little experience and muscle memory I have? I have available, untrained partners to work with so simpler would be better, but I'll take what I can get.

[Aaron]

Juggling.

Really.

You can do it anywhere (I juggle in airports a lot). It helps hand-to-eye coordination and keeps those muscles limber.

You can work on walking while juggling and you'll find you end up doing Duke Paul's walk (as shown on his website). You can't "stride out".

Just get some (or make) juggling balls that weigh a bit. If you are very strong and dextrous try shot-puts.

A good half-hour of juggling is usually good exercise for me, but I don't use shot-puts.

I've had friends who use basketballs.

Just move around while juggling and get your feet to move slowly and your body to move level. You can move up or down, but it needs to be smooth or you drop your balls.

And EVERYONE ends up with off-color jokes...

[Corby de la Flamme]

Juggling.

Really.

Plus, handy for dating multiple bog residents at once.

Ok enough comedy.

Warning-- this is HARD to explain in text.

If I understand you right, you have siblings to work with, but no armor, no contact. This kind of time is actually really useful.

The Step Drill

Show your partner what stance is.
Face each other in stance.
Each of you alternate taking ONE step each alternation however you want in order to reach the objective.
The objective is to be EXACTLY in stance, but at 90° to your opponent and at close range. In other words, with your feet just like they were when you started, but with you standing either looking directly into your partner's left ear or right ear.

As you get better at doing this, you can start moving simultaneously at the same rhythm.

The Parry Drill

Stand in range however you like, with a whiffle bat in your sword hand. No shields.
same for your partner.
As slowly as possible*, one person starts by swinging a blow of any kind at the other.
The defender must block with their whiffle bat and then must develop their blow out of the motion of that block. This often means a full return prior to loading your next blow.
No feints allowed.
No backing out of range allowed.
footwork is mandatory
dodging is allowed (as long as it is in range) but if you try to dodge rather than block and fail, you lose even if you hit your partner.

Maybe I can post some video of these. Once I take some.

More suggestions would require knowing more about your style--like whether there's a formal footwork system. If there is, then just repeating that footwork over and over as you move around the yard can make a big difference. I used to work Sundays in an empty office building with a long hall. I'd do the Oldcastle "back foot step" all the way up & down it.

*it isn't really as slow as possible, but think of it that way. Most mistakes in this drill come from going too fast. Imagine that you have to do it slow enough that no one would get their eye poked even if they suddenly were incapacitated by a sneezing attack.

[Aaron]

Those drills that Sir Corby gave you are great.

In fact I'll be doing those drills while I'm in Korea (with a stick or something if I can find one), but in the airports I'll stick to juggling so I don't alarm security.

[Angusm0628]

Full length mirror.....

Set it up somewhere and watch yourself as you do "pell work" use your reflection as the target and s-llloooowwwwlllly throw your shots so you can examine your body mechanics and your technique....adjust accordingly until what you see is what you want your opponent to see. As you set your technique at slow speed move up...rinse lather repeat

[Corby de la Flamme]

As promised, here are the two videos. Requires Quicktime, probably version 7.

http://mdawson.staticcling.org/parrydrill.mov
http://mdawson.staticcling.org/stepdrill.mov

[Noe]

Thank you, Corby!

[Brian de Lorne]

Sir Corby,
In the step drill, is it a set of pre-planned steps, or is each person trying to be the first to reach the 90 degree position?

[Corby de la Flamme]

Sir Corby,
In the step drill, is it a set of pre-planned steps, or is each person trying to be the first to reach the 90 degree position?

No and Yes.

I see I need to edit the description of the drill above for clarity.

[Vebrand]

I was taught (and still use) a version of the step drill many years ago. Something like this (easier to do than explain and I don't have Sir Corby's fancy video camera ).

No shield or sword.

Fighter A & B takes their fighting stance and put the back of their shield hands against on another. Works best for righty on righty (or lefty on lefty) but can be with a righty vs. lefty.

Fighter A takes the lead moving at a normal walk circling to the left and then to the right. Once you have done this a few times you speed it up and add a straight in press to the mix.

The object to keep the hands touching at all times. Fighter B is trying to keep the same distance and positioning through out the movement. Fighter A is trying, with just footwork, to control and step inside of fighter B's stance.

After doing this reverse the rolls.

Verband of the messed up knee (but plans to fight in two weeks anyway )

[audax]

I can't get Corby's movies to work for me.

[Corby de la Flamme]

We had a hard thunderstorm pass through and kill power to my building and related network services.

They should be available again now. Sorry, this bandwidth is free, but it doesn't come with a 99.99% uptime guarantee.

[audax]

Much better now.

[william]

Sorry, I've updated my QuickTime viewer to the latest version (7.1) and still don't see anything other than the progress bar. Does anybody have an idea what I could do to fix this? Those excercises would help a lot - and the visual example would help a lot to understand them properly ...

Thanks,
William

[Corby de la Flamme]

For the OS-impaired

The Step Drill

The Parry Drill

[WilliamThomas]

I personally believe the step drill is by far the most important of these two exercises. I feel it ranks up there with learning proper muscle memory for shots, but it is just not very fun to do. I personally hate it, but I also feel that working angles and corners is the weakest area of my fighting game. I think I am going to try and do the step drill a few minutes before each practice because I just desperately need to get better in that area of fighting.

William Thomas

[Christian Thomas of York]

Nice! I have been doing something similar here lately but was not aware of some certain aspects of the drill. thanks

christian