Training was a little more sedate this week as preparations for the British Museum came to a head with much logistical discussion and fight preparations being done during the session.

Additions where made to the warmup this week; after the initail mobility warmup and stretch we ran through basic static falling techniques and then managed to just about do the sword drills one and two as part of the warmup along with the daga against sword drills learnt last week. All of the techniques came from Fiore's work.

This was followed swiftly with an introduction to shield hits.  Shields can be used as a very effective tool to get a crowds attention and really sell some savage attacks with big noises and interesting techniques. However, it all starts with managing to strike your opponents shield in the correct places with the correct, directed force. We flew through an inventory of sweeping, direct and downward shield strikes. Finally we all had a go at being hit in the face with the shield from a stationary position; learning that for about every 15 feet the crowd is back from the piece you can move back about six inches from the final shield position for safety's sake.

After a short break practices where made for the British Museum's Hadrian Exhibition with those not attending going through daga plays and soon proved to move with startling speed and accuracy.

If you would like to become involved in our training or learn more, then why not contact us and we will do all we can to help.

The session commenced with the usual warmup and discussion of what was planned for the evenings training.

Continuing with the examination of Fiore we reviewed some of the techniques learnt over the last two weeks. Over the next few sessions we will continue to revise these techniques to ensure that they are firmly engrained into our minds. The distinct differences between the work we have done so far on gladiatorial combat and the much better documented medieval techniques (Fiore, Talhoffer etc ..) is something that we are keen to ensure we can demonstrate at our events through demonstration and direct public communication. This is driven by our desire to be a historical combat society (for gladiators and medieval) rather than a stage combat group that simply changes costumes from one period to the next.

We started with the sword drills one and two from the Sword School again and found them a useful revision tool; as confidence in our abilities has grown we have found that the techniques are really beginning to lend themselves to both increased variation and speed of movement.Next we revised two of our daga against long sword drills and found them simpler to remember. Over the next couple of weeks we plan to experiment with these daga drills and review them for stage combat use as they currently involve cuts and thrusts that cross or directly invade areas (face and throat) we would prefer to avoid.

After a short break we broke into three groups. Those preparing for the upcoming British Museum event training specifically towards their fights; another group continued to teach and reviewthe Fiore techniques to those unable to attend previously and finally the third group coontinued to work on stage combat basics and the user of the long sword within it.

The session ended by watching two of the fights progress for the British Museum with some comments.

Next week we intend to briefly revise the sword and daga techniques and then split into Stage Combat and Gladiatorial halves as we seek to prepare winter training and for the British Museum.

We continued this week with the examination of Fiore dei Liberi. A whistle stop tour of several techniques and their counters saw some interesting and valid variations. What soon became evident to all involved was size does matter! 

Each set of exercises were demonstrated, attempted, revised and done again. The group is new to the examination of any of the 'fight books' that have been left us. Normally our historical work involves examination of Roman iconography while attempting to understand what is being depicted with no manual or even idea if the artist understood his subject matter. The 'fight books' have opened a new and very interesting set of theory for us. Currently we are centering our efforts around the works of Fiore dei Liberi, using the Getty manuscript as our primary reference (from the Exiles WMA group).

Starting with three of the four abrazare posta (unarmed position); posta longa (long position), porta di ferro (iron door?), posta frontale (front position) we found they were fairly simple to interpret and could be swapped for both left and right handed versions quite simply.

From here we moved to two of the five daga posta (dagger positions); Middle Iron Door Double and Middle Iron Door Double Crossed. After a while we found it worthwhile experimenting with the crossed arms, some of the taller students finding it easier to cross differently to the illustrations in Fiore.

As this is our earliest days of researching this we then experimented with the Fiore Sword Drills #1 and #2 kindly put online (www.youtube.com) by the www.swordschool.com. The drills are fairly straight forward to follow and served as a great introduction to the Fiore system for us. The covers and counters shown in Fiore are new to our Stage Combat techniques and involved some alterations to the way we normally fight to ensure safety in the display. Although the session was not long enough for us to try 'at speed' we started to feel fairly comfortable with the techniques. Size truly made a difference as ligadura (locks) had to be applied more slightly differently for the smaller people as they fought some of the larger students to achieve similar results.

After some additional guard work we called it a successful evening and ended the session.

Next week we intend to recover the work done this week for the first half of training and then split into two groups. One group continuing the work with Fiore and stage combat the other group preparing for the last show of the year at the British Museum for the Hadrian Exhibition.

Our thanks to the Exiles for the work they have done with Fiore making more accessible for us and the wider public.