A recap of the 1st Master dagger work from last week saw us leap into a similarly styled training for an examination of Fiore's 3rd master dagger work.

The final part as given across to rehearsals for the event at Peterborough in a few weeks time with those not able to come practicing their skills in a dagger fight that looked fantastic - well done all!

This weeks session was given aross, almost exclusively to the 1st Master dagger work of Fiore. Studying was divided parts, the actual technique then its adaption to stage combat  and finally variations for safe inclusion with different weapons use in stage combat.

Another well attended trainig at Collingwood saw us split into two groups after the warmup and core competencies; that this time saw us practicing very basic sword skills and a throw.

The two groups then carried on with their seperate training as one group rehearsed for the Sherborne show next weekend and the other group practiced theor gladiatorial skills using gladius and spear. The spear work in particular, although only using the most basic forms looked very effective as people got to grips with the weapons and the apparent restriction of these simple movements. We are looking forward to next week when fights can start to be put together for the others to watch.

 The Sherborne training moved along nicely as rehearsals started to cement the fights and dialogue in the minds of the players.

Another well attended session ended with two seperate groups training together as work gets under way for the immediate Pirate event at Shernorne Lodge Park and for later gladiatorial events throughout the second part of the events season.

Training went well as we learnt about Piepowder Courts and, in our case, its demise into chaos and a later tavern brawl; the rest learnt basic swordsmanship with the gladius, or in some ases with two.

 Mercifuly not a referece to The Ting Tings that Ivor Novello winning and Grammy nominated indie pop duo but rather the noise a rapier, back sword or similar weapon can make when receiving a good beat or defence. This week saw us start looking at Camillo Agrippa's treatise and seeing how it can inform our stage combat, the results where fantastic.

Making a quick way through his guards and hand positions and a couple of adaptations to our standard stage combat we each had an opportunity to create a very quick phrase of a fight and demonstrate our new found skills to the group. The session was an all round outstanding success with each fight looking very different (as was hoped) from the previous weeks medieval Fiore based combat. Everyone quickly took on board and showed direct application of the basic Agrippa techniques and created markedly different but true to form historically based stage combat pieces that impressed everyone present.

 Next week we will be building upon this for people going to Sherborne and for those unable to make it they will be cast back 1500 years and start practicing gladiatorial work ready for the coming season.

A great effort by everyone the after training McDonalds was well deserved :D

For more information on Agrippa you can start with the ARMA website here, a sincere thankyou to them for all their hard work and public availability, if you haven't you should take some time to view their site and read their research.

 The final training session for the weekends events went well. Dressed rehearsals showed a few last minute adjustments to armour that need doing but no major changes to the fights due to ill fitting harnesses or costumes, which was great news.

A special mention should be made for Gary, who came down from Farnham by train straight after work and wouldn't have got home much before midnight, just to be able to watch the fights through to make sure his commentary gels as well as it can during the show.

Costumes looked great, the fights came together and it was a great evening with everyone leaving looking forward to the event.

No rest though as next week we start for putting things together for the following show and additionally start getting people trained up with gladiatorial weapons.

Another well attended training session saw us continue with the preparation for the coming New Forest event, fights are coming together very well and despite one members acrobatics slipping on a rolling spear handle everyone escaped without injury. The only injury to Graham was to his pride as he slipped and fell, luckily though his fight partner softened the blow by being unable to breath for laughter.

 The 'Hollywood' fight is fitting nicely together with the ladies doing a superb job of piecing it together even though they haven't managed to all be  in the same room at the same time due to real life committments, so a big thankyou to everyone who has stunt doubled for one of the ladies over this period.

 Training will be open from 1830 next week to enable people to get changed for the dressed rehearsal.

A well attended training saw us go through the usual warm ups with an improvised thigh and calf exercise from Alisa that brought on some interesting looks of pain from a couple of us. Guard drills and dagger drills then gave themselves over to be used in the warming up session as well, with new face Jasper catching onto them a lot quicker than most of us seasoned *experts*.

With the bulk of us moving swiftly into the preparations for the up coming show in the New Forest the rest carried on with some core competency work, making sure that skills are kept up to speed.

The events training went very well with all of the fights being blocked out and ready for learning and honing.

An excellent training session.

Training continued after the usual warm up including some stretching and guard/dagger drills for movement straight into fight rehearsals. 

After figuring out who would fight who sequences were quickly figured out to enabled their tightening next week after being filmed by Steve who kindly brought along his digital camera to record the sequences. The use of the various drills soon becomming evident and very useful in the sequence's creation as they added a historical feel to the usual stage combat.

Some inventive use from Ben and Sam using gauntlets in place of shields as the shields where *ahem* elsewhere allowed for a nice sequence to be mapped out. It was doubly refreshing for older members of the group as they brought with them their own previous experiences making for a very different looking fight to standard fair, but all within the safety codes of the groups stage combat.

A fight was blocked out for the ladies to use in their 'Hollywood' sequence with kind help from Alisa and Pete who stepped in last minute (thanks for being a lady for an evening Pete).

All the while Big and Lil' Steve went through more weapons drills in preparation for Steve's public debut.

Training, thankfully, went off without too much of any April Fool gags being played on one another by anyone.

From now until the New Forest Scouts show training is principally being given across to preparations, rehearsals and equipment checks for the event itself. However, anyone not involved directly in this event should still feel free to come along to training as there is plenty that can still be practiced, rehearsed and gone through for future events that you are coming to, so we would encourage everyone to come to training as normal.

After a warm up including the guard drill from Paul we moved through some competency based training and then got to the business of a quick and nasty fight sequence in which a wandering company of lazy men decide to try and take some food from a passing group of ladies and quickly discover that the women must come from Fiore's home town as they are quickly put to the floor as all good 'ruffians' should be. With dagger drills and throws the group of men are soon shown the errors of their ways and then robbed by the women!

The blocking out went well and the timing is just about there after the first couple of half speed run throughs finished. So next week it will be more of the same to tighten up the sequence, looking for down time and gaps and then onto some individual combats.

Coffee in McDonalds afterwards was enjoyed by all.

 Well I suppose it had to happen eventually, training this week saw us finally go to Southampton for the evening as the usual location as being used for a local theatre production.

The site was superb and perfect for our uses. A very relaxed session as we revisited the medival competencies and added the sword drills and experimented within them with some 'half sword' work in anticipation for next weeks preparation for the coming seasons first medieval show.

Afterwards we had a change of location and went to Ben and Meriel's for coffee and wii, narrowly missing the call of the nearby Burger King! Thanks for your hospitality.

After a quick warmup and some core competencies we moved swiftly into a very quick stock fight scene that was quickly picked up by everyone for the next exercise that was to do the smae sequence through a number of times using different era weapons, employing the historic competencies, to look distinctly different each time, selling the idea of competent swordsmen from each era.

Then, in an attempt to foster the new ideas of peer critique each sequence was critiqued by the members present; giving some very positive information to everyones fights.

Fun was had by all and the event was filmed, so hopefully some movies up soon.

As ever McDonalds was descended upon, undoing all the previous good work.

Making efforts to ensure that our fights are as realistic as possible, we broke off in two groups for this weeks training, with Steve looking at core sword movements and the rest of us working on the punch pads. Stepping through a short technique slowly, we built up the movemnt to go as hard and as fast as we could, as though our lives depended upon it and then attempting to keep that sae force of movement we reinterpreted the movements through stage combat. The result was, for a time, much crisper, harder looking movements from those taking part; blowing the cobwebs out from our movements proved difficult and we all had several goes at picking up the speed and illusion of force after prompting from our companions. However, judging from the puffing and the noises involved, everyone enjoyed themselves.

Afterwards John took us through some different knapping techniques. Some of our best video footage from events shows that properly placed knaps get the audience gasping and wincing at the percieved pain. Most recently at Kingston Maurward we would have had the medics out on the field had it not been for one of the members on the side explaining that all was well, all due to a well used knap by two of our members. We examined, self, shared and partner knaps .. all leaving with warm, well slapped hands, shoulders and thighs! 

Then across to McDonalds for a well deserved coffee and ice cream!

Hello all

 A big thankyou to everyone for being flexible this evening and training in the Green Room, we're not sure what happened this evening with the normal venue, we'll do our best to find out and try to make sure we get some warning in future, but thanks you all for being so versitile, especially John, Steve, Alisa and Paul who helped arrange the Green Room at the last minute to ensure training could continue.

We had planned to run through sword drills and the various uses of the weapons today, buut instead ending up trying various Fiore based hand to hand techniques in a round robin format. Thanks to John for coming up with the new plan.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, especially our quick version of an unarmed vesion of Fiore's Magistro 9, Zogho 8 and some of the other embarrassing locks and counter attacks.

Next week we will continue with the planned sword work to be lead by John.

 In a change from recent weapons training this evenings session was a quick tour through the principles surrounding the application of locks and pulls. So many fights both historically and in stage combat come to a point where the weapons work ends and the hand to hand begins, so the session was designed to help with the principles surrounding the safe application of these techniques rather than simply going through a list of moves, hopefully enabling everyone to do things safely in their own manner during their own fights.

Additionally we took a look at the hip throw and a leg sweep, again helping students understand not only theprinciples of these techniques, but the safety surrounding them to help them use different methods in their own fights.

Next week its weapons time as we break out various swords from different eras and go through the basic stage tecniques surrounding each one as e seek to complete basic movements with them. So remember your gloves and to bring any personal weapons you might like to use in addition to the club's weapons.