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Renaissance Faires and The Art of Swordplay
I was introduced to the Renaissance Faire in the Summer of '95 and since then I've loved every minute of it. I got the chance to fight again when I joined St. Michael's and started line fighting, individual combats and skirmishes. I had to adapt very quickly since battle pageants was a show and not a life/death struggle although that is the ideal picture we want to show the audience. I needed extra training for stage/theatrical combat and so the best place for that was the SAFD. The
Society of American Fight Director's training program was ideal as far as I'm concerned. It was short, very hard work (more like boot camp), intense in every way. I came away with my Actor/Combatant certification and now I'm really to do some serious butt kicking on a theatrical level. The training in SAFD taught me a very important thing, apart from honing my skills as a fighter it taught me how to fight safely. To conduct brutal combat without compromising the safety of my fellow actor/combatants. Somewhere down the road, I became really caught up with historical fencing. Michael Cawalti and his scholars would be fighting on the streets or at the Maypole and I wanted part of that act too. So I started studying historical fencing, first with the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts formerly HACA which I thought at the time, was really good and then I joined AHFwhich really blew me away. It was under Maestro Ramon Martinez that I became totally inthralled with historical fencing and combat. Maestro Martinez is simply one of the best and it was through him, my love for histrocial fencing and swordplay expanded. When I returned to Los Angeles, I started doing research on my own, copying historical manuscripts and reading every piece of material I found on the subject. William Wilson unknowingly was to proved to be my principle supplier in getting my hands on all the documents I could handle. I will be forever grateful to him who has put so much time, effort and energy into the translations and making his work available for those of us who love historical fencing. While visiting a close friend in Toronto, Canada I enrolled into AEMMA and went through their training on longsword which ultimately became my weapon of choice.
The years in the army didn't dampen my spirit to win, if it did anything, it made me more competitive. Winning at a tournament was an important issue and win at all cost. Of course that was the wrong way of looking at it. In fact winning is not the end all and be all. But occasionally I would still fight just so I don't get rusty. But when I fight I fight to win or at least try to win. The bouts were usually nasty events as I would try to inflict as much deadly damage as I possibily can without breaking the engagement rules. Most of the time I'd get disqualified.
ENLIGHTENING NEW DIRECTIONS
I joined Bankeside Schoole of Defense in Summer of 2000 and started to train more in Italian Rapier, Although I still went back to AHF and Maestro Martinez periodically for Spanish rapier, The Italian Rapier classes added another dimension to my fighting skills. Under Steven Leon's directions, I like many of us scholars, flourished. Choerography was a big part of what the Gentlemen Adventurers did out at faire and I was more than happy to be part of the school. I've found over time, many instructors have their own odd ball kind of peeves and many of them are pro one thing or another. Steve Leon who trainied under Michael Cawalti had none of those odd qualities. If anything, Steve studied sword as a genuine scholar would study books. This provided ample opportunities for me and all the other scholars and apprentices to work at our own pace with encouragements from Steve.The Bankeside Schoole to me seemed to be the ideal type of school because 95% of the students there are all faire participants and re-enactors. This consolidated the idea we were all doing this not just because we love to fight, but because we participate at faires and we not only wanted to look good, but made sure we were great at what we do when it comes to waving a sword about. Someone once asked, "Were we elitists", The response was an overwhelming "Yes!" Joking aside, we pride ourselves highly on historical accuracy, and maintain a very high integrity towards doing everything correctly and safely.
The fact Bankeside uses live steel in practice and training was a big plus as far as I was concerned. While wasters were used in many schools, Wasters does not have the feel or weight, or finesse of a steel blade. It also made each one of us more aware that there's potential injuries which can and did result on many occassions. But It made each student conscious of what we were doing and took care in handling a sword. What I hate are groups, especially SCA and the Adrian Empire who beat each other up with rattan swords. To me that's just bad for form and it looks ridiclous at a Renaissance Faire where rattan was not discovered until the late 17th Century.
For the past few years my concentration has been on the Italian masters of fence while doubling up my efforts in the practice of Longsword. While many people has picked Fiore, Talhoffer or even the later period masters such as Mair, Sutor and Meyer, my favorite has been and will remain Sigmund Ringeck's Commentary on Johannes Liecntenauer's longsword text. For some reason Liechtenauer gives me the impression of straightout simplicity. For Liechtenauer the longsword was war. It was all about hack, bash, mangle and the destructive power on the battlefield. Longsword fencing in the later periods took on a new twist by making it into a fencing technique. It was a way to hang on to the old ways of chivalric knightly combat. While I appreciate it as an fencing art, I love it more as a battlefield weapon.
ON RINGECK'S TECHNIQUE:
Sigmund Ringeck's teachings on "Langenschwert" are based on the great Swabian master, Johannes Liechtenauer's writings from the 1380s and reflected a fencing method that had been developed by at least 1550. Liechtenauer was highly influential among other German fencing masters for the next two centuries, and his teachings were expanded and written upon by many throughout the 1400s and 1500s. The beauty of Ringeck's commentaries on Liechtenauer is that his method is fairly simple. He describes core principles from which fundamental concepts are developed. A number of basic techniques follow from these and can, in turn, be employed in numerous variations. While Ringeck's material on the longsword is not comprehensive, it is considerable and provides a view of core principles and concepts crucial to understanding how the weapon was really used. His teachings consist essentially of fundamental countertechniques to fundamental attacks that can be used in endless variations.PERSONAL STUDIES
It is no secret that when I really like something, I stick to it, and Ringeck's technique has been the one I've found that suits me the best. In addition to Sigmund Ringeck, I've also took time to study Joachim Meyer in depth and I have found the two work very nicely together.What all this workout and studying has done is it has helped me enormously when it comes to stage work and choreography. Having so much resources to draw from helps to create fight and duelling scenarios look real. I've had more than one producer and director come up to me and say how good the scene looked and that they really enjoyed watching me fight. (no kidding.) However none of the swordplay would work if I hadn't done my homework or studied diligently at creating realism. I have to thank Steve Leon for constantly reminding me about the "Look of intent". It gives the choreography life when two opponents facing each other looked as if they're going to mutilate each other. The additional dialog just makes it more fun to mock and antagonize the opponent. Heck! The audience doesn't know and even if they did, it just makes it more interesting.
My favorite masters of choice in would include the following:
Vincentio SavioloAchille Marozzo
Giacomo Di Grassi
Sigmund Ringeck
George Silver
Frederico Ghisliero
It would be quite impossible to study every master and there are many great fechtmeisters, so I've remained focused on just the six. That is not to say I'm not interested in anything else, in fact I'll read anything I get my hands on. But my primary focus are the six I've mentioned.
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Rahonavis
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