In tonight’s smallsword group at our Godalming Chapter we revised Angelo’s salute and worked on Angelo’s ‘Method of Thrusting and ParryingTierce and Carte, Called Thrusting at the Wall’. Meanwhile the sword and buckler class today was starting to look at some strette plays (when sword are crossed at halfsword etc) – and using it as a way of identifying correct distance in fights.
Sunday saw our Oxford students gather for a bit out outdoor freeplay. These sessions are always helpful. There’s only so much time during a lesson to learn a new technique and often the best way to practise it is to incorporate it into sparring. There were a variety of weapons on offer this weekend including longsword and rapier, giving students practise with weapons that might not currently be on the training curriculum.
As part of our 20th anniversary celebrations, The School of the Sword is happy to announce that they will be starting a fourth chapter, expanding our reach to Wiltshire.
Our new Swindon chapter will begin in late May with initial focus on Bolognese sword and buckler. It will be headed by instructor Adrian Faulkner who has been doing HEMA for close to a decade now, and has both taught and competed internationally.
“The School of the Sword has a proud 20 year legacy and is renowned around the world for the skill of our students and quality of instructors,” he says. “I’m determined to help shape and build on that with a fun, skilled, diverse, welcoming, safe (but deadly) chapter. Our chapter colour is gold, not just for the medals I want us all to win 😂 but the standards we hold ourselves to.”
Spaces for our first Swindon beginner’s course are limited and now available:
https://manager.dojoexpert.com/student/register.aspx?g=5a17d4b5-b312-4aa2-81be-5a08a1bb6d77&j=en-GB
Tonight at our Godalming Chapter,the smallsword group revised week 1 – drawing the sword, stance, footwork, and the guard and thrust to the inside line in carte. They then moved on to Angelo’s salute, which proved popular, and the thrust in tierce to the outside line and the parade (parry) and riposte to this attack. They also worked on the feather parade, which is a means of pushing your opponent’s point off line or even possibly disarming them by pressing and sliding your sword against and down their blade.
Two School of the Sword instructors headed to Wales this weekend to teach at Gathering of Wolves. Fran ran a workshop is entitled “The Right Place at the Right Time”, while Emilia had a great time teaching tomahawk and bowie knife with around 40 participants!
This weekend saw students from our Oxford chapter head out for some outdoor freeplay. Sparring gives them a student to exchange with students they might not have sparred with before, practise weapons that might not currently be in the training curriculum, as well as get some much needed time to incorporate new techniques and tactics into their swordplay.
Our Oxford student met up again today for their regular outdoor freeplay session. These sparring get-togethers provide the perfect opportunity to practise techniques learned in class as well as get experience of fighting against opponents they might otherwise not get regular practise against.
It was the last side sword lesson from Kristian, at our regular Oxford training session, this evening, as well as the last beginner’s course lesson from Louis! Our new instructors have done splendidly with their lesson blocks at our Oxford chapter and everybody has enjoyed their instruction!
Students from our Oxford chapter met up today for their regular weekend sparring. There were a mixture of weapons available, giving all attending students valuable practise and experience.
Our Oxford students were joined today by members of Milton Keynes’ Clashing Steel for their regular sparring session. Fighting against new opponents not only gives you an opportunity to practise your skills, but to see how they stack up against an unknown opponent.
