Rapiers, sabres and sticks - oh my!

It's the second Saturday of the month and you lot out there should all know what that means by now ...

It was a relatively quiet workshop with only seven people there until the afternoon, but it turned out to be very productive. We did lots of work on the edge parry sequence with stringing the basic seven moves into a an alternating fourteen move sequence, and then adding a variety of options for the eighth attack as a killing denouemont - quillion strikes, grapples, throws, punches, disarms, dagger strikes and a good old fashioned sword thrust to the kidneys. Yum.

The final part of the rapier section of the workshop was stringing a fourteen point sequence together with an eight position dagger parry sequence and then another fourteen moves and a final attack to finish it off, making the whole thing a 37 point parry sequence ... :-)

Lunch, and then into the sabre practice with this workshop focusing on cut two and the different parry and riposte options available from that simple opening. We are starting to see how the attacks, parrys and ripostes flow into each other in a completely different time and style to rapier. Once we had covered the new material it was time to play, we were treated to a single stick tournament.

Single stick is a fine and traditional British martial art, shamefully overlooked by some folk who only think that the Japanese have a history of martial arts. There is an interesting article about it by a Victorian gent called C.Phillips-Wooley to be found in the ‘Journal of Manly Arts’, although the best line from it was quoted by the Prof when discussing the likely stinging blows that we were likely to suffer :

“If you are not spared too much, and are not too securely padded, you will, once the ash-plant has curled once or twice round your thighs, acquire a guard so instinctively accurate, so marvellously quick, that you will yourself be delighted at your cheaply-bought dexterity.”

Wonderful stuff, and needless to say I now have the odd bruise or two to show for my troubles … Dave is frighteningly quick and accurate and handed me a drubbing, although Sue gave him a good run for his money despite a painful strike across the hip bone towards the end of their final match. We finished up with some freeplay and a little more practice with the edge eight sequence which does work marvellously well with sabre as well as rapier.

So, I’m home now, and a hot bath and a glass of Cava has eased my aching muscles, and one of Jan’s fabulous chillis has left me sated and a glass of beer will close the day nicely …