Helsingør Chapter Opening Seminar
Historical fighting in the King's wine cellar.
The opening of the new Helsingør Chapter in Denmark took place at Kronborg Castle in truly unique surroundings.
By Mikkel Stjernberg – Chapter Master Helsingør.
They came, they taught, and they left but while they were here, Jonathan and Kristina made sure we got supreme teaching and had a great time at the opening seminar of the Helsingør Chapter.
12 people attended the seminar, which took place at the town's local castle, Kronborg Castle; a World Heritage property and a truly unique place to be able to train at. You can find it here: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/696.
We were supposed to be in the inner courtyard of the castle on both October 1 and 2 but because of heavy rain and stormy weather we fled into the former wine cellar of the Danish King, Frederik II.
Need for speed
Although emptied from wine many years ago the cellar kept us warm and dry as Jonathan and Kristina went through a set of very dynamic sabre exercises. At the Helsingør Chapter, have a profound fascination for the sabre because of its speed.
Naturally, it made us happy that we were able to open the chapter focusing on that particular weapon. And, spending a day and a half doing sabre fighting gives your body something to remember. In other words we all enjoyed the exercises; even a couple of days after the seminar when the bones really started to ache.
In spite of physical limitations everyone worked hard and felt the double motivation effect of being at a place where our ancestors actually fought for their lives with more or less the same moves and the same weapons as we did.
This goes specifically for the sword and buckler exercises we wrapped the seminar up with, introducing new parts of the Guild syllabus at the same time.
Basically it meant hitting the end of a staff with your sword in different ways and getting as much timing and power as possible into it. All the while coordinating it with your buckler and learning to how not be static while attacking or defending. We also looked at some closing attacks and trained with a short sequence exercise.
Vanity and cocktails
To spice things up we were outside in the inner courtyard during the sword, buckler and staff thing; even though it rained a little bit. Much to the rejoyce of a hundred Japanese tourists who made us feel the depths of vanity in front of their cameras.
It didn't help, of course, that we were all a bit hammered from celebrating the new chapter at the restaurant of Tycho Brahe – the ferry that sails between Helsingør (Denmark) and Helsingborg (Sweden). Because of the fact that the restaurant is at sea, it doesn't pay tax; with the result that cocktails are really cheap. Dare I say more?
We had a great time all of us and on behalf of both the Copenhagen Chapter and the newborn Helsingør Chapter I thank Jonathan and Kristina for giving us a weekend to remember and for helping us planning it all.
Finally, I would like to pay my special gratitude to John Waller for his support. We would not be here, any of us, without his incredible effort over the last four decades. It is indeed an honour to be part of such a longlasting quest for historical truth. I only hope that the Helsingør Chapter will be able to do its share of hard work in order to keep developing the Guild in the decades to come.
Helsingør Chapter Opening Seminar
By Jonathan Waller
Mikkel has already done a good job of describing the seminar, so I just want to reiterate that it was good seminar and a nice weekend with friends old and new.
I’d also like to go in to a bit more detail about the training that took place. The Saturday concentrated on sabre. We used this name to cover the use of the various types of single edged and often curved bladed swords that one sees though out history. These include falchions, grosse messer, dusack, sabre etc.
The actual training looked at the later more linear foot work and movement of that one associates with 18th-19th century sabre work and while we looked at the military aspects of the weapon training was done using modern sports sabres.
This type of sabre is actually a really effective teaching tool. The main benefit of them comes from the fact that as they are light, one needs to be light and fluid in the handling of weapon while still maintaining proper control. This is useful in most styles and makes for great cross training when going back to truer weight weapons. Also the lightness and speed of the sabres means that that when applying the principles correctly one can put your partner under high level of pressure different to that achieved with heavier weapons. They are also relatively cheap and easy to get hold of.
As well as developing fluidity and speed with the weapons we also addressed footwork. Again the weapons speed means that balance and timing have to be precise to insure that the timing of feet and hands works correctly.
While developing these areas we used exercises that emphasised using footwork to put an attacker under pressure. We also looked at counter cutting, stop cuts also forced cuts and yielding parries which really helps to develop the skills needed when using binds and other actions that take place at the cross, through the understanding and feel for correct Pressure.
Having trained for 3 hours we then had a good meal and time out in Helsingor on Saturday evening.
Sunday started with recapping on the sabre work.
We then moved outside to the large central courtyard of the castle and trained on the use of sword and buckler. Starting with weapon manipulation we then looked at creating movements that insured well co-ordinated and balanced movement of the sword and buckler in both attacks and reactions. This was first done without footwork and then working on correct timing with footwork in all directions.
Using these skills, we worked to develop power in striking at different ranges and against static and moving targets. This then was developed into using movement and timing to produce effective reactions and controlling actions and the transition between multiple attacks or reactions to then moving between attack and reaction and back to attacks.
We then looked at specific techniques that could be used when closing with your opponent, including kicks, disarms and using your sword to bind up and control your opponent.
Finally everyone had the chance to try to put in to practice all that they had been training through a more prolonged passage of action, using a connected sequence of moves. The benefits of this were greatly increased by the fact that a light rain had begun and the wetness on the rather uneven cobbled surface of the courtyard made for a good test of everyone’s footwork and Balance.
Click here for Articles from the two Helsingør newspapers (in Danish). (This is a large article reproduced in .pdf format).
