Category: Implementation
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Causing Attraction: Non-Dominant Foot Forward in Longsword Fencing
In ecological dynamics, the term Attractor or Movement Attractor shows up every now and then. Attractors can be seen as preferred motor pattern solutions in the current activity context. When an action is seen as intuitive or habitual, it might be the attractor at work. Habit and intuition can be nebulous concepts however, so to…
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How I Learned To Stop Trying And Finally Fixed Knee Collapse
I spent a lot of time trying to fix people’s knee collapse. But the solution ended up being to stop trying to fix it, and just give them more realistic training activities.
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CLA Class Example – Body Language and Deception
This is a writeup of a class I ran recently which I think makes a good case study in using the Constraints Led Approach to teaching.
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Cutting Tournament Design – Helsinki Longsword Open 2023
Design ideas behind the cutting tournament at HLO 2023.
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AG Open 2023 Stats – Point Values vs Targets Hit
I haven’t posted my usual Friday article for the past 2 weeks. Two Fridays ago it was because I was at the AG Open event in Plymouth Michigan to compete, ref, and lecture. Last week I just forgot. But now we’re back, and I’m going to post something related to the event. Something that I…
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CLA Tools for Teaching Cutting
In the HEMA world (and on this blog), the Constraints-Led Approach tends to be associated with games, but there are other ways to create constraints. In this article I’ll present some non-game CLA tools which can be used to train cutting. By cutting I specifically mean cutting targets with a sharp sword. Of course there’s…
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Constraining the Squinter to Fix Cutting Issues
At Bucks, we go through the Lew Gloss in order on a cycle, which helps inform what we will work on in a particular practice. We recently started the schillhaw (which I will henceforth refer to as “squinter”), and it reminded me of common issues people tend to have with it. One of the most…
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On External Triggers
A core tenet of the ecological approach states that fencing is mostly defined by a constant interaction loop between the two fencers: the decisions I make are based on my opponent’s behaviour, and these will in turn influence their next action. This obvious claim should not be news to most HEMA fencers (or at least,…
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Action Capacities and Footwork
Recently the longsword classes at Athena School of Arms have been focusing on footwork, with really good results. Most of our beginner and intermediate students (roughly 6 months-2 years experience) have shown significant improvements. This is a lot better than our past attempts to teach footwork, so I wanted to take a look at what…
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6 Bad Games – Lessons From The Rondo
The following are the results of a game design challenge to design games which have the biggest discrepency between their apparent usefulness and their actual ability to teach sills. Sean FranklinGame List: 6 Games for a Complete FencerExplanation (and introduction to the challenge): 6 Bad Games – Lessons From The Rondo Tea KewGame List: 6…