Expectations – “a strong belief that something will happen or be the case.” Generally used by intelligent people to have an idea of how a situation or behaviour will continue to occur or change.
Change of behaviour is what teaching is essentially about.
Hopefully the change is a consistent progression in a positive direction.
So after training for an hour an older student (who knows his sabre and is quite confident) training Backsword gardant ward. Said student stood in gardant ward I give him a strong blow to his sword because it is hanging out of position some way from his body and as such a viable primary target to disorder your enemy. I fully expected that my student would defend the blow in gardant ward and try to make some sort of return blow as he was able or at least slip back and make distance for safety.
He did neither of these! Instead he went with a reverse blow to the head on the line I had begun my attack. Having removed his sword from his ward I hit him harder than he was expecting with perfect length in the centre of the chest – his blow missed my left shoulder by mm. The surprised – if you can call it that – look on his face was full of mixed emotions. He doesn’t often get hit – he’s a good proactive fighter but a flaw if any is that he doesn’t always try to command his enemies blade before attacking. He still fights for touches rather than receiving none.
Sorry / Not Sorry – Pain IS a great teacher (glad we were using nylon training swords). If there is a number one rule besides judgment of distance it is keeping the space between your weapons true. That is 1st Distance when point to point and Wide distance in any other fight. Why at the moment of attack would you forgo award that is in the right space for the attack and make a suicidal counter cut?
I asked him later in the evening – He wasn’t dying thankfully but a bit miffed – “I didn’t know what you were going to do!” Even having told him to go into True gardant fight from which he has been trained in the two primary options Gardant ward & return and Medium ward & return (Both reiterated in the last few weeks).
Lesson learned – I should have corrected his stance verbally and then practically for the purposes of showing the rest of the newer students why it was wrong. Clearly much reinforcement by physical repetition – it’s not like I haven’t said it 100’s of times – is required in the build up of muscle memory so you don’t have to think overly about what to do (When you don’t know what’s coming) just as in a real sword fight.
Manage expectations – Keep it simple.
In a fight shorten your list of expectations – It’s this or it isn’t – From True gardant fight, Medium ward and return to a reverse blow from high or you stay in gardant ward and make wide space and increase distance when you don’t like the look of what’s coming your way.
garethpr.org 