3 Duelling Games for Fencers & Martial Artists

Three fun games you can play with a partner. A great addition to every training session and a fun way to boost basic skills needed in martial arts, fencing and similar sports.
00:00 Intro
01:07 Where from?
01:31 What good for?
02:07 Game I Version 1
02:44 Game I Version 2
03:27 Game II
03:57 Game III (The Clock)
04:57 Outro
The Event: Swordtrip - The GATHERING
swordtrip.com/t...
Our workshop:
A • Bolognese Sidesword Wo...
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My main source for this video:
100 kleine Zweikampfübungen, 1980 - Dr. Jürgen Hartmann (German)
www.amazon.de/...
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Fior della Spada
Homepage: www.marozzo.info/
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Elisabeth
Instagram: / numyaorion

[@Orimthekeyacolite]

Definitely putting this to use in my kids group and letting it escalate 😈

[@MarozzolostinVienna]

Go for it and have fun! 😂

[@porta_di_ferro]

Super idea! Fun and moderate agressivity.

[@isosahir]

Very nice, thank you!

[@freifechterbasel6115]

Elias Flatscher suggested Hartmann to me not long ago. They are really fun and brutal!

[@NicolaCanta-hz5xu]

The clock looks brutal! Thank you for the ideas 👍

[@frenchgalloglass5204]

These are awesome, thanks for sharing them ! I got tired by just watching the second and third games 🤣

[@tiltskillet7085]

Fantastic ideas. I've never seen the clock before, and it's making me tired before I've even done it. Can I ask what shoes you're wearing? I assume they're Adidas, which I like the fit of, and they look very cool. (Yah, I'm shallow. :P )

[@MarozzolostinVienna]

Hey, thanks for the comment and glad there was something in it for you! Those are boxing shoes by Adidas ;)

[@LongswordRussia]

Hello! May I ask you a question? How to understand that the potential of competitive games with weapons in your hands has already ended? After all, if we use games without weapons to train a swordsman, does this mean that they cannot be played with weapons, or is it impossible to train in a game form that fencing skill for which we use an unarmed game? I used google translate to convey my thoughts.

[@MarozzolostinVienna]

The idea is to use them as additional exercises during training f.e. if your students are tired after the last exercises with weapons you can do smt like this to let them recover their arms and after that proceed with weapon training, this also could be part of complementary training or a warmup before the main session. I hope I got your question right and this does answer it somehow.

[@LongswordRussia]

@@MarozzolostinVienna Thank you very much for your answer! We also have games that are similar to yours. We've been using something similar for over 20 years. The problem is that the skills these games focus on bring us closer to sword wrestling. And such content is difficult to implement in mass sword competitions, because it is very highly professional. Usually, the student simply does not have enough time to master the next skill levels in the direction of "power" techniques - grabs, disarms, counter wrestling. Therefore, such techniques of games without weapons lead to the systematization of training for many years to come. As a result, the initial acquaintance with new skills appeared, and their further development requires the creation of a whole technology of increasingly complex exercises and training, as well as a new form of competition, where the strength component of techniques would be evaluated. We have not solved this problem, and now it is interesting how others are doing it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3SraZqfn7yUic0

[@MarozzolostinVienna]

@@LongswordRussia ​ This seems to be a very specific exercise/ flow for disarming techniques for two handed sword, totally legit if you do fencing with that weapon and disarms are to be trained. The idea in the video was to give generic exercises applicable to different martial arts and situations/ train more basic skills though. This one is way less generic and as far as I understand there is no winning/ gaming aspect, also I see no core stability and/or balance involved...? I'm afraid I don't get your point 😅

[@LongswordRussia]

@@MarozzolostinVienna During disarmament, work on the stability of the body position arises as a direct consequence of the impact on the joints. There is no imbalance, but deviations from balance affect the accuracy of movements. Problems with exercises without objects, balance or body position can give an incorrect assessment of the balance and centers of gravity in fencing. Hand movements without an object use other mechanisms to correct body position and balance. Then it is impossible to transfer this experience to action with the object. Therefore, dueling games should immediately be oriented towards imitation of work with an object and the trajectory of movement of a weapon. To make it clearer, let's say you're practicing kicking. The leg that performs the kick in dynamics makes similar movements as in the lunge. But the muscles are tuned to a strictly defined level of effort in dynamics, and the feeling of balance when attacking with a foot to the upper or middle level cannot be transferred to the biomechanics of a lunge with a sword. A complete reconfiguration of all muscle sensations will be needed, in the time it takes to learn a lunge skill from the very beginning.

[@MarozzolostinVienna]

@@LongswordRussia I think I kind of understand where you're coming from. I do not agree on the fact that to train for a specific weapon or armed martial art only exercises that involve the weapon can be useful. Complementary training is king and used everywhere - and also I am under the impression that you are still missing the point of the ecercises above - as I said: in the exercise you posted (although where did the link go...? Did you delete?) f.e. no gaming aspect in your exercise and the balance aspect is close to non existant especially when compared to the stop and go movements, forces and lunges you encounter later in sparring (one of our goals in training)... As I said the exercises are hardly comparable in my opinion. But I think this could arise simply from the fact that you train for different training goals. In any case have fun and enjoy your training!

[@Peter-wj2hz]

Whilst I see what you are trying to accomplish with these drills, I have to disagree on their usefulness. Most beginner fencers train only a couple to a few times a week. I feel that the time spent at training is very precious, and should be spent building fencing skills rather than being used on fairly generic balance and core strength exercises which are better done outside of fencing class. I have even seen a lesson where artificial warm-up drills actually resulted in serious injury to a student's ankle when it got too competitive/rough (it was similar to the one-legged drill shown, but not quite the same drill). For this reason, it is a good idea if the movements of the warm-up are biomechanically natural, rather than involving unnatural postures like pulling while on one leg, twisting on all fours, etc. Warm-up activities and games are a great idea, but it would be better if they have more direct relevance to fencing, so that the students get the most out of their valuable time with their teachers. For example, pool noodle fencing can be a fun warmup game with many potential variations, in which students can still develop their footwork, sense of timing, distance and reaction. "Simon says" and other mimicry games make for fun warmup or cool down activities. Games of "horse" against a training dummy can be good too.

[@MarozzolostinVienna]

What is useful, what makes sense ecc. depends on the context, the training goals, level of the students, as you say available time for training... At the end of the day we have to trust that there are coaches out there like you who ask the rigth questions and put together the content for their trainings depending on the situation. These are simply other options that I found very useful in our context and wanted to put out there.