Systems Over Techniques
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- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
- Don't be a "technique collector." Instead, understand how your choice of fencing system affects which techniques are applicable at any given moment.
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Another example would be that French small-sword and late Italian rapier share almost of their techniques in common, but they are still quite distinct systems because their posture, arm position, and attitude are radically different.
You can be both a collector and a systematic fighter though. A prime example would be J. Meyer. He has a simple system of the four openings but then he presents a gazillion techniques to practice "until you get the hang of it yourself". I'd argue that you shouldn't stop at collecting techniques but rather continue integrating them into a system.
It's the integration that's crucial. You can use technical ideas from a gazillion systems, but at the end of the day, all those car parts have to fit onto a single chassis, or else performed as separate styles (I can play sabre Radaellian, Living Lineage Hussar, du Joinville, etc etc, but if I try to stick du Joinville on a Radaellian chassis it's notably less effective).
@@russmitchellmovement context above all. Hence you collect systems, not techniques.
System collecting is harder than technique collecting, but well worth it. Also, stealing techniques from other systems to use in your own is universal.
I would say that pointing out that there are a limited number of techniques (by which I mean actions) are possible is only a puddle profundity when you don't think about it. If a student thinks about it with any seriousness, they are confronted with the fact that there are only a very small handful of unique actions that anyone can make in fencing. Removing grappling, and there's around 5 or so. If you only have about 5 completely unique actions, then you are forced to stop looking for some magic bullet, and start to figure out when and why to use them, what makes them work under what scenarios, and how to link them together into sequences of offense and defense.
For example, the difference between 'German' and 'Italian' (more appropriately Liechtenauer and Fiori) fencing schools, is the German system focuses on single action counters, and maintaining a bind, and favors using winding with thrusts or cuts to prevent the opponent from cutting around. The Italian school (at least as practiced today) focuses on parrying and then cutting around. They both use the same cuts and stances with slight variation to suit their overall gameplans. So you can look at it from either end, if you understand the gameplan, you will understand why the cuts are varied, if you understand why the cuts are varied, then you understand the overall strategy of the school. The specific varation is just the tactical embodiment of the strategy.
Sure imitating an action and trying to execute it as a one off action is bad... but doing that in general is bad and a sign of a novice, aside from a few specific edge cases. On the other hand, when you actually try to apply the action you start to learn the underlying technique, consciously if you are especially perceptive, implicitly for the rest of us.
While I agree wholeheartedly with your overall message, saying "there are only a few techniques" is really a way to try and get the technique (action) collector to start to evaluate why they why they would use them in which scenarios (this is what I call technique rather than a move or action), and what the likely outcomes are, and the follow up options from the recurring positions. IE start to form a collection of moves into a system by applying technique to control the outcomes and limit the opponent's available actions.
Very good points! I find that many sport minded fencers and martial artists have this kind of technique collecting mindset.
And collecting is fine because it's a fundamental part of your martial learning. But the integration is crucial and often completely lacking.
@@russmitchellmovement I agree with you there. One opposite trap that the other historically obsessed side of HEMA sometimes falls into is failing to realize that the master’s of old were the innovators of their own times
@@thescholar-general5975 I have three different lineages, living lineages, under my belt and one of my constant temptations is to make life easier for the students by innovating from what I inherited and hybridizing so that my students can have the best of all three of those worlds. A number of my students are completely and totally into that, but I have to be careful to make sure that if I do that, I'm making it very clear that I'm also turning into an innovator rather than a preserver.
@@russmitchellmovement yes, exactly I focus on mostly chinese arts and the real problems arise whenever there are forms which are passed down and they don’t openly say that each successive master was putting their own twist on the system to make it work for their own needs. After a couple centuries of this it becomes very difficult to discern what techniques or aspects of the system are older or newer inventions. Fortunately, some systems have older texts associated with them which can clear up some of these mysteries for those who want to understand the historical elements within the living system.
I would advocate first teaching exactly what you learned to preserve it and then going back later when the student is more advanced, i.e. has studied the arts separately for a while, and say "Okay, now we are going to play with combining these things." I am not an instructor though, so take that opinion with a grain of salt.
I get what you're saying. But changes in posture, spacing, or timing don't really change the cuts biomechanically. A #1 cut is still a #1 cut wether it's a messer or a sabre. Just the set up is different.
May I ask that you and your assistant wear trousers that are not black next time. What you are doing with your upper body is interesting but so is what you were doing with your lower body. Your footwork and the movement of your hips will be much more visible if it blended in with the background less
That is a good suggestion and I will try to remember it, but I have no call over what my training partners wear on any given day. So halfway yes halfway maybe.