A.S.E.M.A

Long Sword and other knightly arts

Types of Drills:

Form Drills:
Form drills are the foundation of good technique, they focus on individual techniques and work to correct basic structure, sequence of motion, timing, breathing, application of principals and biomechanics
Examples:
Warm Up Drill, Angle Cutting Drilling, Static Long-Point drills (beats,winding thrust etc)

Technique Drills:
These make up the majority of the curriculum for new learners, they take all basics techniques and counters and train them against opposition in escalating levels of difficulty starting with poor attacks or defences being broken by basic technique and continuing to increase in difficulty as the learner progresses.
Examples:
All opposed drills, starting with  breaking attacks at the blade with schnappen or breaking  wide attacks with long/early footwork with simple absetzen/versetzen.

Flow drills:
Flow drills build on technique drills allowing multiple techniques to be practices one after the other with the opposing learner either defending or countering multiple times.
To allow for a full expansion of flow drills learners require their own head, body and hand protection
Examples:
Variation drills which allow the agent or patient-agent to continuously apply one motion to next, oberhau to schnappen to Durchwechsel to wind or zucken etc.

Dynamic Drills:
Dynamic Drilling is the first step towards assaulting (sparring) this should be the aim of all learners from their second term onwards.
Dynamic Drills can be done at ever increasing levels of speed and compliance to reinforce good habits, build confidence and increase the level of realism and duress in training
To be done properly it requires each learner to have their own head, body and hand protection.
Examples:
A learner is allowed to use all variation responses listed under a drill in an attempt to limit, obstruct, confound and restrict their training partner.

Bind Drills:
Used as a way of reinforcing the importance that the master stresses on fighting to and from  the bind, winning the bind and continuing to apply pressure from there.
The bind work drills teach all follow on techniques from the bind from those where the agent has won the vorschlag to those where the patient has seized the Vor from the Nach.
Once learners have basic techniques down such as winding, parrying, disengaging, zucken etc these can be done as a limited form of assaulting known as the bind work assault.
Examples:
Winding pattern, introduction to parries, introduction to Durchwechsel.

 
Limited Assaults:
These are a form of sparring game which can be used to limit the risk of injury with limited the safety equipment.
They do risk the formation of bad habits due to these limitations so should ideally expand as learners invest in their safety equipment.
Limited assaults can be reduced down to only being able to hit a particular target, only being able to hit from the bind, only being able to initiate from a particular guard etc.
Examples:
Bind work game/Bind assault, single ward assault, head shot only, ringen am schwert only

 

Assaults:
Assaults are a traditional term for sparring.
The aim at this level of training is to always make assaulting as realistic as can be safely achieved, this means as much as we can we try not to restrict techniques or introduce rule systems but instead rule on what constitutes a kill shot, a yield position or a disabling your opponent.The aim of assaulting should be to apply the techniques, mechanics and principals learned in previous drill work, ideally with assaulting taking around 20% of all training at an advanced level.
Assaulting requires participants to provide their own safety equipment
This must include;
body and arm protection (gambeson or fencing jacket)
throat protection (gorget, throat protector)
Head and face protection (mask or helm + coif/mask cover)

It is suggested to also have;
Groin protection (cup)
Hip protection (long gambeson or padded tassets and lames)
You may also want;
elbow cops/pads
Vambraces
Rerebraces
Cuisse
Greaves
A mouth guard

Test Cutting:
One of the most valuable aspects of training in weapons arts, test cutting allows learners to apply the techniques they have learned with a live weapon (sharp sword etc) and to complete the technique against different target mediums.
In the future we hope to keep developing our test cutting rigs to create more realistic simulations and rigs that are set up to test all weapons and techniques.
Put simply if you cannot apply the technique with a sharp weapon it needs to be questions whether you should score off that technique in an assault.

Uneven Drills:
These drills normally apply to self defence arts more so than other systems and can include dealing with an armed assailant or having to manoeuvre to not be confronted by more than one assailant at a time.
Example:
In the future we may look at these in longsword from the perspective of blossfechten vs harneschfechten, alternatively using longsword against sword and buckler or longsword vs messer as learners become more comfortable with other parts of the Liechtenauer tradition.
From a Knightly arts perspective the work we have done on unarmed vs dagger is another example

Coaching:
We believe in dissection of techniques through recordings.
We like to have our learners dissect drill and assault videos published on youtube as they learn to interpret and apply principals but beyond this the greatest learning aid that coaching can apply is having practitioners dissect their own technique applications.
For this reason we encourage learners and practitioners to record their own drillwork, assaults and test cutting then slow them down and pull apart everything that is done well and everything which needs to be improved.
When a learner shows enough dedication to their own growth and development we as facilitators and instructors will be able to offer additional coaching services to provide room for continuous growth.

 

Pugilism, Savate and unarmed arts

Types of Drills:

Form Drills:
Form drills in these arts include basic technique exercises both in individual techniques as well as in combinations, these include both bag work as well as live target drills, from a grappling perspective these show individual techniques broken down to their mechanical applications
Examples:
Warm Up Drill, bag work, parries and blocks, counter striking, basic gribs, throws and take downs.

Technique Drills:
These make up the majority of the curriculum as they focus on taking basic form and applying it at realistic speed against a resisting target, these lay the foundation for situational awareness and focus on taking each technique closer to reality
Examples:
All opposed drills, starting with parries, then expanding to ripostes, slips and counter striking, in grappling this includes the introduction of the difference between resistance and countering.

Flow drills:
Flow drills push the boundaries of each drill allowing one technique to move to another and as your training partner responds to each motion the flow grows and develops, flow drills in these arts are the first step toward dynamic drilling and sparring.
To allow for a full expansion of flow drills mouth guards and will be expected to wear suitable protective equipment
Examples:
Variation drills such as parry riposte drills with multiple open targets so that during each interaction the patent can seize the initiative and become the agent.
From a grappling perspective flow drills are the perfect way to teach first and second wrestling, moving form one motion to the next and emphasis the constant need to apply pressure.

Dynamic Drills:
Dynamic Drilling are a safe way of expanding toward sparring during the learning stages, they give each training partners a series of options to complete with each technique and their partner needs to adjust to each change accordingly.
To allow for a full expansion of flow drills mouth guards and will be expected to wear suitable protective equipment
Examples:
In unarmed arts these are basically light sparring sessions where the agent must begin with a particular opening or attack and the drill continues with the patient responding differently each time, when combined with flow drills this allows the training partners to expand their knowledge and skills within the system without jumping headlong into free play.

Clinch Fighting Drills:
Although this applies more to grappling systems this needs to be covered in DDLR and Pugilism as both include grappling, from those two arts we include striking from the clinch with knees, hooks, uppercuts and rolling punches, from pugilism in particular we include entering the chancery and looking for the hiptoss but we also use clinch fighting similar to collar and elbow as a fun, safe and easy way to introduce our grapplers to sparring 
Examples:
collar and elbow, back hold, thai clinch eventually we hope to also include scarf wrestling, cornish wrestling and La Lutte.

 
Multiple Opponent Drills:
These drills are designed to build situational awareness, the aim is to always keep one opponent between you and the other/others so you never have to face more than one person at a time.
The drill scales from just having opponents charge at you with kick shields or pads to having each participant in full gear able to complete all strikes, kicks and grappling.
Examples:
see above

 

Sparring:
Self explanatory.
Sparring is the both the gamification of learning and the closest training to simulating the reality of the art you are training for .
Sparring requires participants to provide their own safety equipment
Pugilism This must include;
Mouth Guard
Head Gear
Savate This must include;
padded legs
soft shoes for light sparring
wooden sole or hard shoes for full sparring
Knee protection
Mouth Guard
Head Gear
Padded mits
It is suggested to also have;
Groin protection (cup)
For full sparring the school will provide:
Baseball leg armour
Chest plate
Grappling This should include;
Coif
Grappling jacket or Gambeson depending on system.

Uneven Drills:
These drills normally apply to self defence arts more so than other systems and can include dealing with an armed assailant or having to manoeuvre to not be confronted by more than one assailant at a time.
Example:
In the future we will look at unarmed self defence vs knife, cane vs knife, umbrella vs knife, unarmed vs blunt cudgeol and dealing with garottes, chokes and improvised weapons

Coaching:
We believe in dissection of techniques through recordings.
We like to have our learners dissect drill and assault videos published on youtube as they learn to interpret and apply principals but beyond this the greatest learning aid that coaching can apply is having practitioners dissect their own technique applications.
For this reason we encourage learners and practitioners to record their own drillwork, assaults and test cutting then slow them down and pull apart everything that is done well and everything which needs to be improved.
When a learner shows enough dedication to their own growth and development we as facilitators and instructors will be able to offer additional coaching services to provide room for continuous growth.