Schola Saint George

A place for articles on tournaments and competition. I have written much of what I believe in my 1996 Book of the Tournament, which is aimed at the practical side of how a modern tournament of chivalry works and how to participate effectively.

A place to post drills that work for you, games, and exercises! This is a place where study groups can find ways to keep practice interesting. Over time, we will recategorize these into useful blocks. For now, we'll simply follow the format set in the first few submitted.

Material relating to the first module of training within the core curriculum, the First Masters of Battle course that follows Brian's book, the Sword in Two Hands. These fundamentals include footwork, weapon movements, the poste, posta transitions, striking to cover, colpi, punte, and the six core plays of the module. Within this section will be found additional videos, class syllabi, and drills, although most of the course content is covered in the book.

This course revolves around fighting with the sword in two hands from Fiore's twelve guards or poste. The objective of the First Masters of Battle Course is to have students working between the poste in order to find a positional advantage from which they can strike the opponent with safety. Ancillery concepts are the making of cover, the preservation of intiative, and the biokinesthetics of striking with efficient power using both the edge and point.

Primary objectives of the First Masters of Battle Course are to:

• Give a sense of who Fiore was, the different weapons within the system, and of the principles-based nature of the curriculum.
• Acquaint students with the fundamentals of movement, including the poste, footwork, grip and primary strikes (fendente, mezani, sottani) and thrusts (punte).
• Introduce the concepts of making cover and striking to cover, two profoundly important ideas.
• Give students the tools to deal with basic attacks using control with cover, pressure and capture. These concepts are illustrated through our six plays of the zugadore.

At the end of the course students should be able to complete progression testing according to the Yellow testing requirements.

Independent scholars should follow the course syllabus, working through it section by section, focusing primarily on the written material in Sword in Two Hands, on the SSG video, and on the clips / notes included in this section. When ready, there are two methods of testing, video and in-person. In person-tests may be done at any SSG event where progression testing is planned. Video testing may be done by posting or sending video to the Schola instructors.

Study groups should also follow the course syllabus, working through each concept step-by-step until one concept is largely mastered before moving on to the next, also relying on the provided training materials. In larger or more established groups, many study groups have a senior student lead the First Masters of Battle course while other students work on more advanced material.

Covers the second module of training, studied by those who have completed the first module and who are recognized with yellow belts as compagni. This module focuses on Fiore's zogho largo plays as tactics, built around the tre volte and the tre tempi. This material is the subject of Brian's second book, Masters of the Crossed Swords, due out in 2008. In this section will be found syllabi, notes, tips, drills and videos.

Students will first study the fundamental concepts of the tre tempi and the tre volte, the three times and the three turns. Additional focus is made on the incrosa itself and how to feel intention through sentimento di ferro, or "feel of the iron (steel)."

Fiore's elegant system begins to emerge during the student's study of Fiore's zogho largo--long play--as a tactical framework. He begins to see when to use the plays learned under the first module, and some new ones as well, drawn from the Getty mss.

New in the Spring of 2008 is an additional set of content a the end of the module that adds Fiore's plays after the breaking of the thrust (rompere della punta).

Students successfully testing on the zogho largo are known as scolari minore and are denoted by a blue belt.

Scolari minore turn their attention to integration of the first two levels with a great dea lof sparring. This is the second part of the four-module Intermediate section of the core curriculum, focusing on the integration of the materials in the first two levels. While the first two levels are knowledge levels, the third module is a performance level. This means that students will be expected to conduct themselves in a fight / tournament and be recognizeable as an attempt at using Fiorean principles. In addition, students must be able to transfer the knowledge to a breadth weapon, and to complete a 3-book reading assignment that provides context of how these arts are used.

Within this section will be found the reading list, drills, Quatro Magistri dall'Entrada, notes on compound attacks and falsing. All of this material is to become part of the Brian's 2008 book, Masters of the Crossed Swords, but the section will include much school-specific content not included in the book.

One part of the book which is complete and which has been used successfully by our scolari minori to get to the incrosa are the quatro magistri dalla incrosa, which may be found attached to this section. Other material includes feinting and falsing, compound blows, the use of psychology in a fight and an increased focused on field comportment, appearance and demeanor.

Like the first and second modules, the fourth module of Schola training is a knowledge level that attempts to present concepts behind Fiore's close play--zogho stretto. Students seeking recognition for the completion fo this level must demonstrate basic falling and locking skills (the tre ligadure), know the fundamental daga counters, and all of Fiore's zogho stretto plays for the sword in two hands. As this is a knowledge level, students must be able to demonstrate safety in falling and in zogho stretto play.

Students working through the module should focus on:

1. the Art of the Zugadore (Colin Hatcher's falling module, How to Fall Safely)
2. the tre ligadure, or ligadura soprana, ligadure mezana, ligadura sottana
3. Concept of presa imperfetta vs presa perfetta
4. Disarms: Tor di daga, tor di spada
5. Fiore's zogho stretto plays for the spada a due mani

Fiore begins the Getty and Pisani Dossi (PD) treatises with abrazare--grappling or grips, and such skills are certainly near the center of Fiore's conception of his Art.

Although our core curriculum focuses on introducing Fiore's foundational concepts through the sword in two hands (la spada a due mani), many of our students are keenly interested in the Abrazare. Our intermediate students working in the core curriculum also generally work on these skills for a part of every class.

SSG Instructor {cb_profile=chatcher} Colin Hatcher {/cb_profile} is the SSG expert-in-residence on Fiore's abrazare, but with the next generation of SSG instructors growing quickly within our school, we expect to develop alternate pathways into the SSG structure that begin with the abrazare. It is our belief, however, that the principles that bind Fiore's art together may be approached from any of the his presented weapons.

Included in this category will be articles and class notes from SSG students (and sometimes others, too).

For the most part, Fiore's spear is based simply on the scambiare della punta, the exchange of the thrust. Fiore doesn't offer a great deal of variety, but the lanza can be fought using almost all of the usual poste. Most of the Schola play with the lanza uses either the scambiare and the rompere della punta, although the rebattendo is also used in order to disarm or break the opponent's guardie.

In DFW, we begin sparring using a lanza of about 6', 1 1/8" ash pole fitted with one of the Revival spear-points. Using this, students can enter into sparring without much equipment, yet participate as briskly or cautiously as they like. We begin sparring this way in the first couple of months, and even new students can qualify to compete using the lanza in tournaments and pas d'armes.

The lanza teaches novice combatants a great deal about the fight. Most basically, students become used to striking and being struck in return, to calibrating blows upon them and against their opponent, about line and distance. Combat with the lanza or short spear can be fully compettitve and complex, is extremely aerobic, but is much simpler than a fight using the sword.

Advanced students learn to use the "butt" of the spear in order to use redoppiando and rebattendo, closing per the plays shown in Fiore's lanza section. This form of combat with the lanza is much more difficult much is safer for the combatant, since this technique is much better for controlling the opponent's weapon, Fiore's hallmark.

In this section, there are a number of documents. As of the date of this entry, there are only two: the chapter on the lanza from Masters of the Crossed Swords in its rough form (Fiore's technique) and an archaeological article on spear use.

Level five seeks the integration of zogho stretto concepts, including falling skills, ligadure and throws. In addition, Fiore's zogho stretto and the principles underlying them must be demonstrated with both the primary and a secondary weapon of the combatant's choice. This is a performance level and the last intermediate course, so sparring both in zogho largo only and zogho stretto environments must be demonstrate with reasonable skill.