REVIEW

Breathing/Focusing/Centering:

Positioning your feet in what we will refer to as a Zero Stance, feet shoulder width apart, toes pointed forward and knees slightly bent with your weight on the balls of your feet and your pelvis thrust slightly upwards and forward, the objective is to concentrate on your breathing, focus your attention and center yourself:

1. Breathe in, raising your arms slowly up over head, bringing your air into your diaphragm and raising your ribcage

2. Breathe out, lowering your arms slowly to torso level, feeling a slight tightening in your stomach as your breathe out your air

3. Breathe in, bringing your arms in to the center of you torso (almost like giving someone a loose hug), bringing your air into your diaphragm and raising your ribcage.

4. Breathe out, bring your arms out to torso level as described in step 2

5. Repeat steps 1-4 until you are focused, centered and in control of your breathing

Movement Refresh:

Movement - proper movement is the cornerstone of power generation, proper shot setup, the basis for proper defensive maneuvers, and the premise for all unit actions.  Understanding and implementing proper movements can make the critical difference between poor, good, and great fighting.

• Five Movements
  • Half-Pass/Half
  • Full-Pass/Pass
  • Traverse
  • Gather
  • Compass
• Six Directions
  • Forward/Advance
  • Reverse/Backwards
  • Left
  • Right
  • Cross (Left)
  • Cross (Right)
• Lead-Leg
  • Left (Fighting Stance)
  • Right (Funny Leg)

Turning/Rotation Refresh:

Killing force in SCA blows are primarily generate from putting the weight of the body behind the blow by rotating (or turning) into a blow around the hips.

• Zero Stance Explosive Hip Rotation/Recover
• Fighting Stance Explosive Hip Rotation/Recover

Rotation Block Refresh:

 As the Zero-Stem shows that hip-rotation turning movement is all that is necessary to kill on opponent, the Rotation Block shows that the same type of hip-rotation turning movement is all that is necessary to block shots.  The rotation block is a shield-block defense that is fully integrated with the turning/rotation component of movement.

• Fighting Stance Rotation Block/Recover

Zero-Stem Refresh:

The Zero-Stem is the offensive sword shot thrown from the inside baseline at extreme close range from an opponent with only a hip rotation for force generation and no arm movement at all associated with the blow.  It is the ultimate expression of the fact that force generation comes from body movement, as to kill with a Zero-Stem is to kill solely with body rotation.

• Zero-Stem Onside Head/Recover
• Zero-Stem Offside Head/Recover
• Zero-Stem Combinations/Recover

New Material

Short-Stem:

The Short-Stem is the offensive sword shot thrown from short ranges at an opponent using both hip rotation and small arm movements.  It differs from the Zero-Stem in that there is some arm extension and from the Long-Stem in that we are not fully extending our arms.

• Short-Stem Onside Head - Facing an opponent with a foot or so beetween you in Fighting Stance denying your back leg from your opponent, rest the sword comfortably on your shoulder.  Rotate explosively counter-clockwise from your hips thursting your rear (right) leg forward and letting your arm partially extend forward naturally as your hips rotate so that your arm is half extended diagonally across the opponents' face so that your sword strikes in the "sweetspot" (the top 2-3" of the sword below the thrusting tip) or lower in a "follow-through" manner at the right temple of the opponent.  Recover
• Short-Stem Offside Head - Facing an opponent with a foot or so between you in Fighting Stance denying your back leg from your opponent, rest the sword comfortably on your shoulder.  Rotate explosively counter-clockwise from your hips thrusting your rear (right) leg forward and punching your sword elbow up and to the right in a lever-like motion while slightly extending your forearm forward and slightly arcing the the sword downwards to lever flat into the opponents' left temple (note the arm motions are slightly larger than the Zero-Stem Offside).  Recover
• Short-Stem Combinations - Throw a Short-Stem Onside Head, striking the opponent in the temple (throwing the shot "flat"), making sure to strike with the blade of the sword.  Once the blow has landed, but making sure not to rebound off the blow, begin the clockwise hip rotation and then the elbow pop of the Offside.  Repeat as often and as quickly as possible, but focus first, foremost, and always on proper technique and biomechanics rather than speed and repitition -- to get improper technique into muscle memory would be bad.  Recover