On My Fencing Training Plans

I have decided to use the new year as a trigger for improving my training at the noble art of defence, and I thought I would outline the things I plan to work on and hope to achieve.

Fitness

This is one of the biggest areas which tends to get ignored in most rapier training I've experienced. Most of my discussions with people have tended to work on the assumption that, so long as you can hold your sword up and keep your feet moving through the bout, your fitness is fine for fencing. This is a stark contrast to the heavy fighting community, where fitness is required and encouraged.

Is that just because we have no real need for "armour fitness" as they do, because what we wear is so much lighter?

I don't think so...

My main fitness focus this year will be leg fitness, to improve the speed of my footwork, and the range of techniques available (there are just too many positions I can't use for the simple reason that there's no way I'm getting my 115 kg out of that position once I get there). I'll also be aiming for some arm muscle improvements, but also a great deal of stamina training (as best as I can).

Technique

There is a reasonably heavy focus on technique over fitness in the parts of the fencing community I've been exposed to, and that's all well and good, but I've decided I would like to take it in a different direction for my own development.

There is a definite trend in my training group, especially among those who teach and train us, to focus on developing a broad understanding of advanced and fancy techniques. This is all well and good, in its place, but as the main area of instruction? I feel that it's coming at the expense of gaining a better grip on the fundamentals of technique.

There is a push in the local heavy fighting community at the moment to bring a greater focus on the fundamentals, as the core and basis of any fighting technique, and I believe that it would be of great value to import this focus to the fencing world.

I have several well-identified weaknesses in my technique, and I must say, none of them are "not enough advanced techniques". My weaknesses are all critical areas of the fundamentals. Attacking straight down the line. Not using footwork to position myself for advantage. Poor point control. Poor parries. Not covering the line. Moving straight backwards. Not being assertive in the fight. There's no amount of complicated advanced technique that will cover those gaps, no matter how much Italian you use to describe it.

On Tourney Formats

There are a great many formats which tourneys, either of rapier or heavy combat, may take, each with their own intricacies, advantages, and disadvantages. This won't be a comprehensive list, since you can make up a tourney format on the spot if the mood strikes, but it will cover the more common ones (or, the ones I have experience with).

The advantages/disadvantages listed are somewhat biased to my experience as a herald and a fencer, but I've tried to consider all the effects they may have.

Single Kill, Double Elimination

This one can be considered the baseline tourney format, and is certainly the most common in Lochac.

Each round, fighters are paired up with someone they haven't fought yet (if possible), and if there's an odd number, one fighter is given the bye (which may be fought against a designated person not otherwise participating, but need not be). Each bout goes to a single kill. If a fighter is defeated twice, they're eliminated from the tourney, so the field starts to narrow sharply after the second round.

A common variation on this is to alter the number of losses required for elimination, or to fight the final pairing as a Best-of-Three (or five, &c.). Double kills can either be taken as a loss for both, or refought.

This format requires a lists officer to be in attendance and monitoring the progress, recording losses and determining the next pairings. Often, the herald will assist by recording each bout's results.

A double elim tourney has the drawbacks of requiring an attentive lists officer (who needs to be both recording results and working out the next round at once), one per field if multiple fields are running, and can rather limit the amount of fights that the participants get each. Advantages can be the speed of the tourney, as rounds get successively shorter, and the definitive result at the end (thus its use for many Crown Tourneys).

The single kill, double elim tourney tends to have the highest formality, with every bout announced and salutes made. This doesn't mean that others can't have this level of formality also, but they tend not to as often.

Atlantian Speed Tourney

The speed tourney, which apparently came out of the Kingdom of Atlantia, can be seen as a variation of the single kill, double elim tourney, designed to increase the speed and decrease the lists work.

The fighters line up, then the line splits in half and the fighters pair up with someone from the other side of the line. The fights are done with multiple going at a time, if space allows (so, it requires a larger field than a plain single kill, double elim tourney). If the first bout is won, that fighter goes to the winner's circle, and if lost, to the loser's circle. The second round is fought in among each of these circles. The winner of a fight in the winner's circle stays in that circle, while the loser moves to the loser's circle. The winner of a fight in the loser's circle stays in that circle, while the loser is eliminated from the tourney.

In terms of a double elim tourney, the winner's circle can be seen as "two lives remaining", and the loser's circle as "one life remaining".

The speed tourney requires almost no lists or herald intervention, other than to start it, though the multiple fights mean that more marshals are required, and there can be some confusion among the fighters if they're unfamiliar with the format. It's also very quick, as the name implies, and has almost constant action, so is better for spectators, though can be somewhat unsatisfying to those who want to fight more, as with a double elim.

Round Robin

In a round robin tourney, each round the fighters are paired up with someone they haven't fought yet. There are no eliminations, and a round robin of N fighters will have N-1 rounds, as each fighter faces each other fighter once. The winner is the one with the highest number of victories, or may be decided in a final bout after the main rounds.

A round robin has the drawbacks of the amount of time required, as each round stays full, but is easier on the lists officer, as they can prepare the full list of rounds in advance, and then just need to record scores. It also allows more bouts for each fighter, as they face every other fighter once.

Meatgrinder

The meatgrinder format has been gaining possibilities, and is a sure way to make sure fighters get plenty of action. An example of a meatgrinder for five is thus: The fighters are numbered, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. In round 1, fighter 1 takes the field, and faces fighters 2, 3, 4, and 5. In round 2, fighter 2 takes the field, and faces fighters 3, 4, 5, and 1. And so on for rounds 3, 4, and 5.

Essentially, the fighters form a queue, and then fight the rest of the queue in order, then join the back of the queue (which gives them a break between their round on the field, and their next fight).

Meatgrinders are long, but take almost no lists intervention past counting victories (a common variation is whether to count only victories during that fighter's round holding the field, or all victories). The herald's interaction is also greatly reduced, just making sure the fighters know who's up next.

Every fighter will face each other fighter twice, once each as the attacker and defender. My first tourney took this format, and with 10 fencers, that made for 90 bouts (10 rounds, each of 9 bouts). About three hours long. While it's hard to go unsatisfied after a meatgrinder, be careful about setting them during summer, when fighters may overheat.

Valhalla

The Valhalla tourney format is a semi-melee, even more so than the Atlantian speed tourney. It requires no lists officer, and likely no herald.

All fighters take to the field, and fight a series of individual bouts among themselves as they choose (or it may be treated as a full melee, depending on the preferences of the participants). If defeated, the fighter leaves the field. However, when a fighter is defeated, all those that they had sent off the field themselves are brought back to life. The winner is the last fighter standing - and thus, the person who necessarily defeated all of the others themselves, without dying in the interim.

Because of this, the winner of a Valhalla tourney is undoubtedly the true victor, even if by endurance rather than sheer prowess. However, because of the constant resurrections, the Valhalla tourney can take several hours (or ten minutes, it all depends), and grows with numbers much more fiercely than other formats. It's possible to get only a single fight in a Valhalla tourney, if you're the first victim of the victor, and they're on particularly fine form, but it's unlikely.



I'm aware there are a great many other formats, but as I've not participated in them (or perhaps they were unmemorable to me), I shan't list them at this point.

On Steps From Period Practice

Please excuse another rant on a submissions-related topic.

In SCA heraldry, there exists fascinating gray area called the "Step From Period Practice", often abbreviated to SFPP in general conversation among heralds. In short, an SFPP is something in heraldic practice which is flatly known not to be period, but which is considered a minor enough inconvenience, and is popular enough among submitters, to be allowed, though no more than one per device.

Some examples of an SFPP are the valknut, the wolf ululant (sitting down and howling at the moon), pawprints,  and the "phases of the moon" motif (a roundel between an increscent and a decrescent). Note that this last one is possibly going to be leaving the list, as documentation might have been found. Things can also move off the list in the other direction, if they're found to be so unperiod that they're flat unregisterable.

There is something of an attitude that crops up occasionally that, since you can get away with having one of them, they must be perfectly fine. I believe this attitude to be not only wrong, but harmful.

One of the goals of the SCA is to re-create period art and practice. The Step From Period Practice allowance is a step backwards in this goal. It causes the design of things which can be excessively obtrusively modern. Even if they don't pass the registration process, the glimmer of hope for submitters who see the SFPP allowance means that many are disappointed by an apparently legal design being rejected, and those who aren't, degrade the state of heraldry by a small step.

It makes me long for the days when heralds would create arms and assign them to the deserving...

On the Inheritance of Real World Arms

A subject that comes up with infuriating and disheartening frequency at the consultation table is the question "Can I just use my family coat of arms?"

There are... numerous problems with this. I shall try to address some of the largest of them here.

First, we shall look at the problem from the perspective of assuming the claim to the coat of arms to be true (more on why that's a bad assumption later). We come to a point much the same as if the submitter wished to register their own legal name, exactly as it is. To quote the Administrative Handbook, section III.B.7:

Armory Used by the Submitter Outside the Society - No armory will be registered to a submitter if it is identical to an insignia used by the submitter for purposes of identification outside of a Society context. This includes armory, trademarks, and other items registered with mundane authorities that serve to identify an individual or group. This restriction is intended to help preserve a distinction between a submitter's identity within the Society and the submitter's identity outside of the Society. Any change that causes a blazonable difference between mundane and Society armory is sufficient to allow registration by Laurel. Further, submitters may register either a name or armory which is a close variant of a name or insignia they use outside the Society, but not both.

This provides both the fact that it is forbidden, and also the reason for this prohibition: In the SCA, we are not our modern selves, and our names and heraldry ought reflect this. You, as a person, could not have existed within period (we are, after all, each a product of the sum of our experiences). There may be some philosophical debate around how to define various parts of this, but the rules are as they are.



Next, we come to the much more weighty problem. The "family coat of arms".

There is no such thing. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

In most heraldic cultures, arms are the property of the individual, not the family. Yes, his son will inherit, or his daughter if he has no sons, but only the first son inherits the coat. There may be modified versions handed down through the various family lines, but the plain coat is owned by one person, and one alone. The idea that they're owned by a family, or even worse, by a surname, is painfully wrong.

I know, there are many companies willing to sell you a plaque with your "family coat of arms" on it. Don't know it? Why, they have a handy-dandy book of surnames, each with their own coat of arms! I can think of two possibilities. Either they honestly don't know that this is heraldically poor practice, in which case they are willfully ignorant, given how easy this information is to come by, or they do know how poor it is, in which case they're maliciously fraudulent. I choose to hope for the former.



Note that I said *most* heraldic cultures. There are some notable exceptions to this, especially the Polish heraldic practices. But, these also present a great problem.

In the Polish tradition, each coat of arms has a name - what essentially boils down to a clan name. Each person in that group may have a different surname, but will include the clan name in their name as well, for some double-barrelled fun. Every person with the same clan name bears the same arms.

I can already hear the plans being drawn up by people clamoring to register some Polish heraldry that they have some claim to, or some other rare family-based example... Ahh, but therein lies the problem. Every member of that clan has the same rights to the same coat of arms. If you register it within the SCA, then you and you alone have the rights to its use. Unless you're willing to allow every other member of the SCA with some claim on those arms to use them, you've just taken something that they have as much claim to as you, just by virtue of being first.

No, much better to avoid the subject entirely.