HEMA - Defensive and Offensive CONDITIONING

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WARNING: The advice and movements shown in this video are for informational and educational purposes only. Consult a health professional before engaging in any exercise or martial arts program.

[@bortin_hema]

I like your separation between the conditioning required for attacking/defending. Having vor means having the luxury of making a concious decision about what happens next. The defender can only react impulsively, and will always be one human reaction time behind on tempo. One of the most difficult but also most useful things I have drilled my students in is conditioning good footwork in the defense. The natural reaction to getting pushed seems to be leaning back and quickly walking backwards with passing steps while raising the arms to protect the head. Taking passing steps is a defenders bane because it twists the structure from the hip, and raising your sword in a purely protective manner means you are no longer actively fencing/defending yourself, rather just running away. Conditioning the body to stay low and move backwards with simple, explosive steps and an active center line is hard both mentally and physically, but gives better structure in the parry and means you have the option to counter at any given tempo. Great video!

[@dustronyt4565]

this vid gonna be extremely useful, as always though, good job ^^

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@dustronyt4565 thank you!!!

[@Davlavi]

Interesting discussion.

[@stuartking84able]

Great video. I think conditioned attacks only work when you and your opponent are fighting in a conditioned way, e.g. both trained to parry riposte. As soon as someone breaks the template by attacking twice, the whole thing falls apart. So, i agree: defence must be automatic, attacks must be planned.

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@stuartking84able I agree yes

[@Tsurukiri]

I have been taught to modify my attack depending on how the opponent reacts. So, for me at least, there is no attack plan really. Same goes with defence, it too needs to be modified if the opponent changes the direction of the attack after initiation. This is when you fight with experts. But when teaching beginners, I use similar approach to yours, because they cannot yet understand the more complex stuff, and lack the necessary sword handling skills to pull it off.

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@Tsurukiri there’s a human reaction time which makes you unable to modify certain actions past a certain execution time. A fast attack intentioned to hit can’t be easily modified, unless it requires more than 0.3 seconds or something around this number to be executed. This in neuroscience is rationalized in the difference between “open loop” and “close loop” circuits/actions. So if you act too fast and your eye/brain doesn’t have enough time to perceive what’s changing around you in the meantime, you can’t change the action basing it on feedback… As you don’t have the actual time to receive it. It’s explained here: www.lancaster.ac.uk/fas/psych/glossary/closed-loop_and_open-loop_control/

[@Tsurukiri]

@@FedericoMalagutti I know, that is true, but, just be careful with the studies, those are always related to what the study setup was. What I've read of those, usually there has not been a very long training time for the participants, or there is no possibility to predict what happens next. In practical life, my son plays Fortnite with so fast reaction times, that they are way below 0.1 s. 0.3 seconds (about 3 fps) is a very long time in that game, as well as in sword fighting. I'm pretty sure your reaction times are below that too. Of course, there is a good question how much we predict the opponents movements from the small cues available to us. This may be one reason why the studies do not match with swordfighting reaction times, due to the prediction involved, which makes us react faster.

[@DctrBread]

with conditioned attacks, i will simply say that you can condition/drill some decently complex behaviors on offense. you can drill entire combos, a rotation of options that mutually cover eachother, or drill the response to a given situation.

[@FedericoMalagutti]

Yes, precisely

[@sergireig]

At some point you'll have to write a book about philosophy and theory of the swordmanship

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@sergireig it would be cool. Indeed

[@sergireig]

@@FedericoMalagutti It can be your post-retirement project

[@torquevonthorne948]

Remember gentlemen: when you refuse to try a parry and riposte for a whole duel, understand that a Sabaku no Maiku in the world will fall ill. Happy new year Federico 🎉🥳

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@torquevonthorne948 lol! Thank you! Happy new year

[@defenderofwisdom]

Are you with Cobra? I'm looking for conditioning exercises taught by GI-Joes.

[@javier6483]

Greetings, Federico, and fellow swordsmen! Let me share something I learned from Michelangelo Reina of Omaha Kunst des Fechtens that ties beautifully into Joachim Meyer's teachings and the HEMA's wider tradition. It’s the concept of the OODA Loop-Observe, Orient, Decide, Act-a framework for decision-making developed by Air Force Colonel John Boyd. In fencing, it’s all about reading the fight, positioning yourself, making smart choices, and executing faster and better than your opponent. It makes a lot of sense and facilitates the understanding of students when explained with the drawings and all the material available about the subject (I know I know it's not traditional and some will say I will burn in the warp like the heretic I am for practicing Meyer and mixing it with this). For The Emperor !

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@javier6483 hey!!! Well the OODA is good while attacking, while defending it’s more “OA” in almost all the cases as the time needed to consciously think goes beyond the time needed to actually defend, as we have a natural delay of 0.2-0.3 seconds needed to actually perceive what’s happening around us, before even being able to think or act.

[@carloparisi9945]

Hi Federico, that's an interesting video, thanks! My view differs in some details, I think that the defense can be planned just like the attack, although at times you're surprised by the attack and have to defend with an automatic, trained response. Invitations, binds and beats can be used to provoke and attack that you want, in order to use a defense that you planned beforehand. On the other hand, the single parts of a complex attack are to be conditioned and performed automatically, when you decide to use that specific attack, but you can also use a trained response to react to your opponent's defense (case in point, a circolata, against a parata di contro that you did not expect). Imo, conditioning and planning apply to both defense and offense, although, as you say, the attack should be a choice of yours, I say should be, because good fencers will make you attack the way they want (Daniele Adami is a master in this) to counter the way they want. Happy new year!

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@carloparisi9945 well, provoke parry riposte is an attacking action in my opinion, even if it has a defensive component in the plan, you are in control of initiative! So I agree with what you say but I see it slightly differently.

[@CorSerpentiss]

Ciao Federico, just recently came back to your beautiful channel as I picked up again my HEMA activity a bit more seriously after a while 🤣 I'll agree with Carletto on this one, seizing or lending initiative does not necessarily qualify the type of action you're performing as "attack" or "defence". You can be defending on your own initiative as well as offending on the opponent's initiative (counteroffence, the realm of Epeeists) as well as performing hellish cursed mind-bending sithlord abominations such as the feint-in-time on the opponent's counter-time... Whole world to unpack there... Happy new year and hopefully see you in '25!

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@ hey!!! Well here we are splitting the hair in four, as we both say, lol. Personally I would say that technically speaking you are defending, but tactically this is part of an offensive action (as part of a second intention). So I would say that you are on the attack anyway! But if we don’t analyze tactics and we analyze techniques instead, then you are defending. In regards of everything else Carletto said, yes, as a byproduct of taking the initiative during a second intention action (whatever is its nature) you are fencing in terms of your own plan and so you are acting defensively (technique wise) on your own terms, which doesn’t require reflexes conditioning. At the same time, this is an exception to the rule. Namely, we can point out for sure that “Yes but!”… BUT (XD) the rule is that a defensive action must be conditioned, even if may bring bad outcomes sometimes by being used by an opponent on purpose, as everything in fencing, it’s good and bad at the same time.

[@henrik_worst_of_sinners]

Yanks are proud of their "ODA loop" in military tactical context. How would the mindset be the same/different in a HEMA context?

[@henrik_worst_of_sinners]

OODA

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@henrik_worst_of_sinners well, because in fencing sometimes the speed of the action goes beyond the time needed to receive the information (0.2 - 0.3 sec) + the time needed to consciously decide what to do. So OODA is good while attacking but not while defending, while defending its more OA: Observe, Act.

[@417hemaspringfieldmo]

Fight or fence?

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@417hemaspringfieldmo for both

[@417hemaspringfieldmo]

Martial arts almost never equals competitive sport.

[@catastrofista]

I think what you say only applies to common people, not everyone. Some people (high functioning sociopaths) think way faster than other people, so they don't need, and don't bother with, as much conditioning. Other people (high functioning autistics) are slow thinkers, but are great at recognizing patterns. They benefit greatly from conditioning, and they can attack by reaction when identifying an opening without having to plan. This is relevant because sociopaths and autistics are more common in the HEMA community than in the general population.

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@@catastrofista admittedly, as much as people may differ from one another, defense asks for a split of section reaction, which can’t allow conscious thinking.

[@catastrofista]

​@@FedericoMalaguttiUnless you can read your opponent like a book. I've seen fencers like that. If you have an attack plan they already have another to defend against it, not by reaction, but by analysis and response. They can think in the same time span that it takes a normal person to react.

[@Tsurukiri]

@@FedericoMalaguttiIt can be done. For example, we can practice to modify our attack when the opponent counterattacks at the same time as we attack. I'm not sure how 'concious' is defined, but one certainly needs to make a decision in order to switch from attack to defence, or to evasion of the opponent's strike. You can see this not working with beginners, when they put their focus to attack strike, and forget to monitor the opponent, who will counterattack at the same time. More advanced fighters can stop their attack mid-flight,and move to countering the opponents counter.

[@FedericoMalagutti]

@ it depends by how fast and committed the attack is. If there’s no actual intention to hit, and the time to land the attack is enough, the action can be modified, otherwise not.

[@Tsurukiri]

@ This is true, fast attacks will be more difficult to modify, and one additional factor is how good are your sword handling skills, as is the weapon itself, heavier and longer being more difficult. But, there is always the intention to hit, if the opponent does not react. If they, for example, start to block, when you see this, just change the direction of attack and hit them elsewhere. I used to pre-program a 'feint+attack' and then execute it no matter what my opponent did, but found out that it is better to attack and then modify the attack, or switch to defence, depending on what my opponent does. Less double hits was the result.