Sometimes I wonder if these articles can make a difference. I can't imagine a few words on a web page causing someone who has been doing it wrong for five years to suddenly realize what a mistake he's made, to introspectively think back over all the people who have come once or twice to a fight practice and never returned. Those "teachers" think those who don't come back just "weren't tough enough" for heavy fighting.
No, this article is for those readers out there who may, someday be put in the position of teaching a new person, or running their own ongoing fight practice. Especially, this article is for the person about to participate in their first fight practice. Because you may not be as lucky as I was. I'm not tough, and if I'd been subjected to a pounding my first time out, I don't think I would have been back. And that thought makes me very sad.
Everyone Needs Discouragement
Fighting is hard and physically demanding. But it is very cool. Lots of people come to a practice and decide they want to try it, regardless of their actual ability to learn, practice, improve or stick with it. By no means do I want to discourage people who will do the work, who will stay with it, but every practice and every teacher needs to find a way to separate those who will waste everyone's time for 3 months and then never show up again from those who are interested in fighting for the long haul.
Notice I did notsay "those who will be good fighters." It's not our place to say how good someone has to be to be "successful." Is it fair to say that someone's fighting career isn't "worthwhile" unless they get knighted? No. That's like saying no one should go to school unless they can graduate with honors. Fighting is its own reward for me, and should be for everyone, regardless of their talents and skill. So we have no right as instructors to select people based on how fast they will be how good, no right to insist on the gifted or those with high pain tolerances.
But we do need to run practices that discourage the dilettantes from those who will actually make it to authorization and beyond. There are two main ways to do this:Physical Punishment or Boredom
Technorati Tags: Armor & Weapons, Heavy Fighting, Heavy Weapons, SCA, Squires
Physical punishment is most commonly the way instructors separate the dedicated from the dilettante.
If a person shows up at practice and tells a teacher "I want to fight!" and the teacher's reaction is "Well okay then, let's get you in armor." then that teacher is using physical punishment to determine whether the new person is dedicated enough to keep at heavy fighting. Guess what? Lots of people who go home from their first fight practice with foot long bruises on their leg and butt decide to try something else. I'm pretty sure I would have.
Many of these people who never again put on borrowed armor could have been successful fighters if they hadn't been traumatized their first time out. Not everyone thrives in a confusing, violent and painful environment where they are likely to feel like they have no control or chance for anything except getting hit over and over. While there's a small percentage of men (always men) who get more and more determined as they get more and more bruised, the majority of people who experience the "newbie beat down" don't enjoy the experience. And since they thought fighting would be fun, when they find out the reverse is true, they are done with fighting.
Only uncommon instructors use a test of patience as a method of weeding out the dedicated from the dilettantes.
Same statement as above from the new person: "I want to fight!" Completely different response: "Great! Let me show you how to stand in stance. Now let me show you how to take a step. Now let me show you a blow. Here's another one. You're learning quickly, so here's another one. Work on those while I fight, and I'll check on you in a bit. No, like this. Okay we're out of time for tonight. Next week I'll show you how to block. Practice those blows with a broomstick or something all week."
I'm obviously in favor of this method. It's safer for everyone involved. A good grounding in basics is critical to the long term success of a fighter and it assures that you have a common terminology to explain problems.
Do I need to point out that these two ways of discouraging dilettantes result in very different pools of people who "make the cut" into regularly being in armor? Physical Punishment culls all but the big, or at least the tough, or the very, very stubborn and occasionally the dumb. If your fight practice is full of the big, tough, stubborn and dumb, then you're looking at the results of Physical Punishment.
On the other hand, Boredom does not discourage the big or the small, the tough or the easily bruised. The stubborn come back, but so do the unsure. The only people who don't come back are those who don't really want to do it, and maybe the impatient.
The impatient are easy to spot. Often, they have a strong sports or martial arts background and they think that if they can just get in armor, they will be naturals. An impatient potential fighter with some sort of physical background that makes him (always a male) want to be in armor right away will push for that, and teachers can speed things up. But the time learning some actual blows and blocks is important even for those natural talents, and even more important for those he is going to fight. The time an instructor spends with those naturals can give valuable insights into whether the new guy is likely to go wild once they're in armor.
A very small percentage of new students are both impatient to get in armor and completely unsuited for it. The Boredom instruction method may drive those people away, but impatient, untalented fighters will never stay around anyway.
Where else does someone show up for their first martial work out and get to actually fight? Has anyone been to a dojo where the new students get to spar their first night? Or box?
There's nowhere else I know of outside of Fight Club where anyone thinks it is a good idea for two people who have never met before to start whacking at each other after 15 minutes of discussion, mostly about borrowing enough gear that fits. Sure, that newbie is a friend of the chatelaine's roommate, but does that mean you the instructor knows him well enough to be certain he won't freak out the first time he swings a sword? And if that new fighter isn't the sort of physical specimen that could actually hurt someone even if they did freak out, are you sure that being whacked in the head won't send them into a panic? Even with waivers signed, why take the chance?
How long does it take to authorize sword and shield?
It isn't a question of how much time, but of how many practices and whether the new person has gotten actual instruction at that practice.
I'm pretty confident that someone who comes to 6 of my teaching practices, works through what I show and gets into loaner armor the first time that I think it is a good idea will authorize on their first try.
I suppose that in the unlikely event that I attended 6 practices in 6 days and the same newbie was at all of them, they probably wouldn't be ready. You need a little time between practices to let stuff sink in.
Prodigies and the previously highly trained (good karate guys, for example) can do it in 4 practices or maybe fewer, but their technique will probably suffer for it.
As I've written of before, I appear to be on the extreme slow end of the scale regarding opinion of how soon to put a new person in armor. My answer is typically "After 4 practices." Which actually means "After they've learned 3 blows, know stance, know how to step and know what blocks are correct."
Technorati Tags: Heavy Fighting, Heavy Weapons, SCA