I painted my masks.

Flipped classroom

I am planning on modifying the class structure to what is called a "flipped classroom".

In short, the lessons will be delivered by video, probably by YouTube. The student will watch a video of a technique, either before class, or on their smartphone at the beginning of class, and then use class time to practice with a partner. They would also be able to refer to the video as class progresses and ask the instructor for clarification.

The instructor would test the students periodically to assure comprehension, and have them repeat lessons as needed.

This allows students to:

1. Get more reps in of assigned lessons.
2. Learn at their own pace, possibly learning more.
3. Study what they need individually. In one class session, several different students might be practicing something different.

I feel this will improve the student experience, and allow more weapons to be added as the school grows.

Right now, this will be done with a checklist for each student, but videos will be added over time to fill out the experience. I have high expectations.

Also, I my curriculum will be eventually available on YouTube so that other schools can take advantage of it, or even solo practitioners or clubs. This will likely be offered as a free service, but we will ask for donation through a service such as Patreon. Details will come, but we look forward to this being a very useful practice.

Accurate choreography can look good on film. Pugil: A Fencer's Story

Ringen Analysis at Ritterkunst

There is a very nice article about grips in ringen over at Ritterkunst:

HEMA practitioners who spend the majority of their time focused on the swordsmanship aspect of the Art have a great advantage in their study, in that the techniques have names and classifications that are, for the vast majority of the time, consistent across treatises. This, sadly, is not the case for Ringen. Rather, more often than not, techniques are called something like “another good technique” which isn’t very useful for comparing and contrasting techniques across manuscripts!

Further, different masters have different words they use to describe steps or arm movements, adding to the confusion. Some treatises are words-only, some are images only, some are images with brief descriptions and others (though too few) have both images and text. It muddles the tactical lessons inherent in the throws and leaves us to work out on our own these important details in the proper use of these throws. This lack of continuity in nomenclature, pedagogical presentation of the techniques, and visual presentation has left many with the impression that there are hundreds, if not thousands of discrete techniques, none of which are named.

I believe otherwise, and suspect that there are in fact only a relatively small number of techniques that can be properly called Ringen techniques. Much more likely, there are probably 70 or less discrete techniques, but that each technique has a variety of possible entries, grips from which it may be performed, and other small differences that can be identified, while the basic throw is unchanged. These techniques can be used often as stand-alone throws, as counter-throws, or as combination techniques.

Leckuchner Videos

I think I need to make video interpretations of all the plates on Leckuchner. What do you think? Who wants to help?