Last night I attended my first longsword class at Academie Duello, and found it to be a mixed experience, to be honest.
I've signed up for eight evening classes, one hour every Tuesday and Thursday evenings for the month of March, which I planned as a substitute for my normal visits to the gym on those nights. As requested, I arrived a bit early for the class in order to receive a quick orientation on the simple student login process and the setup of the studio. The exercise space is divided into larger and smaller practice floors by sword and fencing mask storage racks, with a small retail area near the front and a museum display along one wall.
While I was waiting for our session to start, I watched the students in a rapier class dueling each other, and I was surprised to see that muscle doesn't seem to play a large part in the duels. I would expect the duelists to forcefully push their opponent's blade out of line to either block an attack or to create an opening, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
I mentioned this to our instructor Miguel, who pointed out that it doesn't take a lot of effort to hurt someone with a sharpened steel weapon - apparently it only takes four pounds of pressure to pierce the skin. I can't argue with that, but I still feel that muscle has to have some application in the process.
The evening begins with a lesson on our weapon of choice. The longswords that we're using are in the style from the 14th to 16th century, about 40 inches long, with a 30 inch blade length and a simple crossguard. They're designed to be used with a two-handed grip, with the left hand on the pommel of the sword, rather than snug to the right hand on the hilt, in order to provide leverage and control. The school follows the Italianate model of swordplay, and as such all the terminology is Italian - the stronger part of the blade is the forte, or strong, the part near the point is the weak, the debole.
It's interesting to learn the techniques and the language used to describe them. There's a kind of poetry to the names of the moves: posta di donna, "the woman's guard"; the "boar's tooth" or dente di zenghiaro; porta di ferro, the "iron door" and so on, and watching the instructor do demonstrations shows a nuanced and graceful style.
It's a bit more challenging to try the exercises in person - not so much due to the complexity of the moves, but simply because it's extremely difficult not to mirror the instructor and do everything backwards. I also recognize that these are the building blocks of a martial art - stances, strikes, and blocks - but right now they're just disconnected fragments, which is a bit confusing. It may help when we go further down the path of blending the moves.
However, it's frustrating as well. By its very nature, fighting with swords requires an opponent, and, sadly, once again I'm the odd man out at the party, as with my ballroom dance classes many years ago in Toronto. I'm in a class of five with two couples, both of whom had one partner buy the sessions as a gift for the other.* The instructor had me working with one of the couples as a trio last night, but I feel more than a little self-conscious about interfering in their shared experience.
It's also not really a substitute for gym workouts, at least at this level - the only time I breath heavily is when I run to catch the Number 7 bus for my trip home.
However, early days, and I'm certainly not going to drop out of the class, but I'm hoping to feel a little less like a fifth wheel as we move forward. That being said, if I had one piece of advice for someone taking the course, I'd recommend that they go with a sparring partner.
- Sid
* I texted my wife Karli to confess that I had never thought to invite her, and she was kind enough to reply that it had never occurred to her that she might want to attend.
