Guild Seminar in Tilburg 2005
EHCG Seminar, Tilburg. October 29th-30th 2005.
Mikkel Stjernberg – Chapter Master, Helsingor, Denmark.
Being a Dane in Holland is as easy as anything. The sounds of the language are a healthy mix between Danish, German and English, and the people of Holland are - well - the people of Holland. No they are really great. It's just like being home, and I had a great time with our Dutch Guild friends. Bert was an excellent host, and it was a pleasure to meet Stephan from the chapter in Erlangen in Germany as well.
The two-day seminar was about footwork and basic staff training. Especially the mobility of our footwork was put to test. We must be able to move in all directions with speed and good balance regardless of the position we are in. The goal is to be fluent in our motions and we can only be that by having a fluent footwork.
Therefore we worked with different types of off line steps, passing steps, crashing in steps, retreating steps and more; and ended up concluding that they are all the same technically; the distance, balance, timing and speed are the crucial factors. We practised with and without staff; as well as in pairs and groups of three to raise the stress level.
During training Jonathan and Christina emphasised the importance of using as long stances as possible during training (without compromising the stance). It gives us a better physical training of the body, a better perception of distance and illustrates our mistakes more clearly. On basis of that we worked with balance, speed and timing within different drills. Very dynamic and great fun!
At the second day of training we did the same but spiced it up with basic staff techniques such as enveloping, engaging, disengaging, pressure exercises and the four fundamental "corners" of attack with an attached response.
As always in the Guild all of the exercises were framework illustrating the principles of the system. It's up to us to vary the exercises during everyday training and make them work according to the principles.