My Trip To WMAW 2009

Well WMAW 2009 has come and gone, and I really enjoyed the conference.

The trip to the US went quite well, and United were pretty decent to fly with. Nothing fancy, but they got us there cheaply. The transport instructions that came from the organisers of WMAW were really good, right up to the point we hit the Petro station at Racine. It appears that the various taxi companies in Racine have gone belly up with the economic downturn in the US, but fortunately the Shuttle Bus company took pity on us when we explained the situation and got us to the Dekoven Centre about 15 minutes before check-in finished. This was 9.45 pm, and by this stage it was about 28 hours since we'd left home. Both Alonya and I had only had about 4 or 5 hours sleep in that time, so after a bit of schmoozing and a shower we were off to bed. The plan sort of worked, as we had roughly 7-8 hours of sleep before breakfast, and I didn't have a huge jet lag problem, just a general sense of being tired.

OK, first day at WMAW and I'm off to my first class, which is Fencing Pedagogy with the San Jose fencing masters. I ended up in Sean Hayes' broadsword / sabre group and actually really enjoyed myself. I haven't done that many lunges in a while though. Sean came up to me afterwards and remarked I'd caught him out on my first lunge, and that he was really impressed by the quality of my lunge. I was bouncing for days on that comment, and it's at this point that I ask Maestro Peter Linich to take a bow, as it's his fault! :-) When I did tell Sean who'd taught me, he was really surprised because he didn't know that I was a student of the Aussie Maestro. They'd heard about Peter via posts on the Classical Fencing lists, and had actually checked to see if he was on the AIMS graduate list.

The next class was Steve Reich's Bolognese introductory class. I really wanted to see what his interpretation was like. We do have some obvious interpretative differences, and we both work of different primary sources. Steve uses the Anonymous Bolognese text as his primary text, and I'm working from Antonio Manciolino's Opera Nova.

The big differences are Steve emphasises the gathering step, cuts pretty much with a straight arm from the shoulder, and uses a different Porta di Ferro stance. I'll start with the stance. Steve is profiling the shoulders to bring the sword hand well inside the front knee, and the hand is turned towards 4th a bit. I'm sticking with Manciolino who tells us it is in line with the knee. The cutting action left me cold, as the cut preparation involved lifting the arm up to Guardia Alta as you gathered forward to deliver the cut. Coming down, it tended to be flatter at around 40 degrees, and left the forearm exposed as it came in, since the action came from the shoulder. Oh and I'm not convinced you hold the round buckler square on! It was all fairly basic, but he did have a lot of first time students which made it difficult for him to push through the material.

The last session for the day was Marozzo's Spadone, with Tom Leoni. Nice class, gave me stuff to take back home, and I now see where the inspiration for Steve's cutting actions came from. A big two-handed sword like the spadone isn't really manageable unless you use a full arm action to move it around. I don't agree that the same action would be used in spada actions, as you don't have the assistance of the momentum from the heavy sword. Any way, spadone rocks and I'm going to have to make time for working through the material.

I just went to watch the bouting Thursday night. Lack of sleep meant I'd developed a headache that was slow to shift.

Friday dawned and the first session was Puck Curtis for Spanish rapier according to Ettenhard. The man's a qualified Maestro, and it shows in the way he runs his class. I really enjoyed this one, and no I'm not explaining what we did, you have to go read the material at www.destreza.us or just stand still and I'll hit you with it! :-)

After lunch it was Bill Grandy's rapier class on measure and tempo. A good class and I'm definitely going to be using a few of his drills for my Thursday night classes. I liked the way he built the drills up to include actions in tempo.

Last class for Friday was Ilkka Harkanein's Bolognese dagger class. I'd started to run out of steam by this point, and had trouble keeping up, despite the nap between classes. Illka's one of those instructors that throws everthing at you, then gets you to practice. It's not a teaching style that suits me very well. On the whole I liked his interpretation for most stuff, but must admit it's a bit of a blur. Very obvious he's done a lot more work with the dagger material than I've done so far.

I did do some bouting Friday night. Got to play with Illka in Bolognese sword and buckler. He's very strong and quick, but like Steve is leaving exposed forearms, and using rounded actions in the cuts. I sort of hammered the poor guy, but we really had a lot of fun. I also played some rapier with Kevin Murakoshi. He's a Provost with the San Jose fencing masters program. A lot of fun and we managed to make each other work. It's very rare for me to fence somone who is a better hand sniper than I am. We swapped notes afterwards, and basically pointed out problems we were each aware of. Kevin needs to push with his back leg in his lunge, and I'm fencing in teaching mode. I'm waiting everytime I gain the sword, which is a bad thing for initiative, especially against someone of Kevin's calibre.

Saturday was another full day. I didn't sleep real well Friday night, and was tired. First class was Tom Leoni's rapier class. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtScmWzvm1E Lots of excellent drills, which I've written down for use on Thursday classes. Unfortunately, Loni's brain broke half way through so I got to just watch a big chunk of the class.

After lunch it was more Ettenhard's Destreza with Puck. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIzwfyuByPU This class was lots of fun, full of smack talk from the manuals. The basis of the class was Spanish vs Italian, so we were looking at how Destreza theory would counter Italian techniques. Kevin Murokoshi was Puck's poke test dummy, and we were laughing everytime Kevin came bounding out to be hit. After watching this I've decided that hence forth crash test dummies shall be called Kevin.

This was followed by Steve Reich's class on Bolognese provocations. I was fairly familiar with the concepts, so did a lot of watching for his interpretation. Steve isn't closing the lines when he provokes with a thrust, which I found I didn't want to parry, I just wanted to make the direct counterattack. For example, to provoke an inside parry, he was thrusting with the hand in seconde, which leaves your whole inside line exposed to a direct counterattack, even if you provoke on the pass. This is where I worked out we are using different tools to analyse the material. Steve is using the concept of martial intent, where as I'm using Italian circle theory. It makes for some very different ideas on how to interpret the material. Good class since it was based around letting students explore the concepts for themselves, and I caught Steve watching me work with people as well, and he liked some of the stuff I was showing people.

Last class for the day was Paul Wagner's Highland broadsword and targe. Surprisingly, I've never done this class before with Paul. We haven't done this as a class at Stoccata for a long time, and I missed it the last time around. Fun class, and my training partner Dyson was a real pleasure to work with.

Saturday night also saw the celebration feast. This was a real fun night, and the demonstration bouts were worth the price of admission. I did feel sorry for Ken Pfrenger who was sitting next to me though. He's a vegetarian, and the feast organisers didn't really provide a vegetarian option that wasn't pure carbohydrate. My highlight for the night was the classical sabre bout between Maestro John Sullins and Maestro Eric Myers. Absolutely the best bit of sabre bouting I have ever seen, with no quarter given on either side. Fast, sure and clean. This was closely followed by the rapier bout between Maestro Puck Curtis, and John O'Meara. Lovely lovely bout with lots of 2nd intention and tactical play. We did laugh when John rushed Puck, and Puck let slip his inner Spainard and hit John with a beautiful movement of conclusion. The silliest thing of the night was the Bucket of Justice. Tom Leoni will never live this down! :-) Do a search on youtube for WMAW 2009. Fun night, and I got to spend time chatting to people over the course of the night. The guys from the San Jose program were on our floor, so we ended up chatting till after midnight.

Sunday was a rest day for me in the morning. I spent the time checking out the site, and perusing the merchant stall. After lunch I had the final Bolognese class with Steve, which was a lecture not a participatory class. Some interesting discussion ensued, and I got to see a bit of how Steve is doing his analysis.

Last class of the event, and hello my name is Kevin. I was he crash test dummy for Paul Wagner's class on English longsword. Familiar material that was well received. Paul's done a lot of work here, and it shows. It was surprising the concentration levels were still so high after 4 days of work.

Dinner that night was at an Italain restaurant, and we got in a lot of chatting. I spent a good portion picking Steve Hick's brain for ideas on how to track down a manual reference I found, as well as swapping jokes with the Alaskans. Back at the Dekoven, Maestro Hayes floored me with a very special offer. He complimented me on the way I move with a sword in hand. We were playing with a 17th century rapier and schiavona, and he told me it was obvious my body knows how to move a sword. I mentioned I was contemplating getting over for the Sonoma Summer School fencing master program that Maestro Sullins runs, and Sean has offered to spend some individual time with me if I get over. After they picked me up off the ground, I told him I'd definitely enjoy that. There are some offers too good to refuse, and I believe that I may be the first wedge in their International expansion plans! :-)

In short, WMAW 2009 rocked, and rocked hard. I highly recommend going to the next one in 2011 if you're inclined, and I recommend getting over a few days beforehand to acclimate. You won't regret it.

Well that's my WMAW 2009 experience in a nutshell. I'll put up more entries later about the rest of my trip.

Rick