Saturday, February 23, 2019

Moving it All to Patreon

Just a quick note to anyone interested, that might still pop into this blog, I have very recently started a Patreon page.
Patreon is a way to help artists of all kinds to get some compensation for their work. So, for the price of one private lesson a year, or a newspaper subscription, you can follow my blog, watch training videos, ask questions, comment, and support my efforts.
If you are interested, please find me at
Thank you.

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Outside Memory

This is worth sharing, and a big reason you need to practice observing enough to actually understand what is going on when stuff moves and functions in the real world, and not in your head.

"Kevin O'Regan has suggested that we may use the world as an "outside memory" to save us from having to store huge amounts of information. Since this information can usually be found simply by moving our eyes, we do not need to retrieve it from our brains."

Steve Morris deserves the credit for finding this very useful piece of research.

Friday, April 13, 2018


This new post, after a long absence, was inspired by recent events relating to a seminar happening soon that will showcase blade systems from around the world. As with any large, disparate, congregation of talent, the drama increases exponentially as do the politics. 

In this case, the organizers, a sponsor, and even some students have received death threats merely for being associated with the event. So this post is dedicated to the trolls who raise the sword of righteousness whilst threatening to hurt people's children in their 'virtuous' quest for vengeance.

I have written a couple of blogs on this subject of teachers and enemies before (links below), and about how useful enemies are in training. After all, who is it you are training to beat?

Fighting systems since ancient times have developed their tactics according to the enemies (threats) they faced. There IS no martial art without an enemy. They are integral to what you do, and how you do it. You find your enemy's weaknesses and exploit them. You find their strengths and try to negate them.

Over time, as the enemy changes, adapts, or new enemies come, so does the fighting style.
You would fight differently against people in armor than people with no armor, right? Just like you would fight against an attacker with a rapier differently than you would against one armed with a katana.

The mirror of this is that if you always stay within your own system, and only fight with people that move like you do, think like you, and use weapons like you do, you have a massive gap in your perception. What happens when you meet someone who moves in unexpected ways? Someone who knows how you feel about them because you have made it crystal clear? You have both shown your cards, and are predictable because of your training.

Sonny would say that it's always the one that you don't see coming that hits you, so best to 'see' as widely as possible. This is smart thinking.

If you had the opportunity to observe the training methods and movement patterns of an enemy before you had to fight them, surely you would take that opportunity in a heartbeat? The tactical advantage of understanding who they are and how they move would be incredibly useful.

Gain intel whenever you can. Become a good interviewer. You learn nothing by shutting people down. You gain everything by letting them show off and talk about themselves as you take notes. Think about this next time you train, and before you tag yourself as one who does not listen, only talks.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Getting Killed Second is Still Not a Win

Sometimes I get asked "What do you think about this drill or technique"?

My standard answer "What happened to get to this point so this could happen"?

Here are 2 exercises that will find you answering this question yourself.

1 - Reverse engineer the moment the drill/technique starts, using the logic of an opponent with a known motivation to get to this freeze frame in the action ... and see if you can pull it off, or put a different way - What needs to happen with them and you, your relative positions, the range, the timing, the targeting, and the scenario in general (location, purpose, numbers of individuals etc etc) for this moment to come about? Can you make it valid?

2 - If I was on the receiving end of this, how would I avoid having it happen to me?

There are very few techniques that are really just plain wrong. It's just that every technique has edges past which it won't work. You need to find the edges more than you need to master the drill.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

The Wave Returns

I'm not sure if this will make any sense in words, but here goes -

If you stand still the range between you and your opponent can only shorten. This also applies to orbiting around them, because the range is still constant if they keep turning to face you.

The action can only get faster (space shortens, so does time to do stuff) because you are both in range straight away if either moves. Not so much a problem if you don't mind fending off some blows and maybe taking a little damage, but much more of a problem if you want to avoid the double death.

Create distance however, and now you have essentially made time. I'm talking here of the backward half of the pendulum, not imbalanced backpedaling.

In general going backwards is a bad idea because someone going forwards will always be faster, but if you can sneak step, angle off, and slide, to subtly change the range they think they see they will have to recalibrate whether they do it consciously or not. The more you can do to screw with their PERCEPTION of where your actual position is, the more chance that you can catch them in an error.

This requires motion.

Basically you have created a target moving in 4 dimensions (3 +time) and this means your opponent must move too if they want to hit you. And they want to hit you. Remember that.

Be there, and then take it away.

RELATIONAL movement means you can freeze, entice, and maneuver your opponent much more easily.

Of course you must be the one leading this dance, not the one following, so move first.

Friday, June 24, 2016

Concrete Boots

The other day, I found myself watching a martial arts video purportedly showing defensive tactics against a short sword or long knife.

I tried to tell myself that what I was watching was taken out of context, but try as I might, I could not rationalize the idiocy of what was being shown.

Everyone has had this feeling, it is the downside of the internet where everything is on show to be critiqued. And I really do try not to diss other styles or opinions. I try to be generous. I try to be understanding, and I try my utmost to avoid laughing and pointing at things I know little about. It annoys me when others do it, and it is lazy and counterproductive to the whole community.

Still, I was left with this video by a well known teacher, showing something I completely disagreed with. In fact not only disagreed with, but think is absolutely horrible advice to give anyone learning swordplay.

So, I started thinking more about why.

WHY was it bad advice?

WHY was this the best solution to the problem presented?

And it came to me - The problem ITSELF was 'wrong'.

In a static interaction, when the feet don't move, and when both players are facing off, the problem presented was actually a real one. A static target is an attacker's dream come true, and the defense shown at that point was an absolute possibility. Technically nothing was 'wrong'.

The defender then counters, but the counter only works because the attacker ALSO stands still, did not move their feet, did not angle off, did not use their other hand, and did not switch the weapon hand. So again, technically, in the situation presented, the counter worked. Add any of the changes however, and the defender would be taking a long nap in a pool of his own blood.

The whole premis was nonsense ... I had basically spent 3 minutes watching a guy standing still strike at another guy standing still, who's counter only worked because the first guy was standing still.

Sigh ..

So, what was the REAL lesson?


[There are other lessons too -
Don't think stick techniques always transfer to edged weapons.
You can learn something from anything.]

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Epee Tactics

Here's a radio piece from yesterday. Transcript also included.

My favorite part:

" I want to suck people into my motions so that they get desensitized. They don't notice when I creep distance and then finish the action. You know, in and out so that when they think, oh, he's coming in and then they jump, and no, that's the moment when I'm leaving. I want all the motions like my chest and my hips and my hand all moving independent in this sort of weird, flowing, jerking motion that, you know, is really in your face."

Nicely put Jason Pryor :-)