Walking and balance exercise – moving forward while turning with 6 steps. (see manual)

Good for learning to keep your balance.

Walking and balance exercise – moving sideways in 3-step Us.

I suppose this one is to help you get familiar with your body movements and ensuring your balance is in your control.

The basic excercise for walking forward with proper weight transfer.  (see manual)

Same exercise as the previous one, but now from a front view point.

The basic excercise for walking forward with proper weight transfer.  (see manual for details)

This if a 4 part series.  There will be about 20 or so exercise videos in the next couple of weeks covering movement of the body and sheild.

I was sick earlier in the week and didn't get videos posted, so my appologies to everyone waiting anxiously for the next videos.  I have posted 4 more for next week.

Please visit the Armour Archive Discussion list for Duke Paul's answers to any questions you might have about these videos as I am only putting his descriptions down with some intepretations of my own.

Richard

Using a helper to ensure your snap shot motion is correct!

Snap training exercise – have student push lightly against the tips of your fingers (as shown.  Take their elbow with your other hand, and move it forward and across their chest, causing them to roll their sword hand as they move the sword forward.

 

There is also a Front View, which I will post tomorrow morning as a special weekend edition. :D

 

Next week look for something new which isn't 'slow work' per se.  Perhaps additional exercises!

Thanks again goes out to Duke Paul and visit his forum discussion section at

The Armour Archive

Using a Trainer to help ensure your snap shot motions are correct.

Snap training exercise – have student push lightly against the tips of your fingers (as shown.  Take their elbow with your other hand, and move it forward and across their chest, causing them to roll their sword hand as they move the sword forward.

 

There is also a Front View, which I will post tomorrow morning as a special weekend edition. :D

 

Next week look for something new which isn't 'slow work' per se.  Perhaps additional exercises!

Thanks again goes out to Duke Paul and visit his forum discussion section at

The Armour Archive

This video is a continuation of the Slow Work Series and Snap Training.  This is a demonstration of how the weight of your body should move to your front foot as your sword moves forward during a snap shot.

So you saw in the last video the rotation of the torso while the head stays in the same spot and you said to yourself I don't do that and probably never can.

Well, this video is for you.  It is an exercise where when your body rotates, you throw your sheild hand back at the end of the rotation.   It isn't something you would do in a fight, but it will help you get used to rotating your body for your sword blow.

This video demonstrates how the head doesn't move during a normal flat snap.  Observe the rotation of the torso as well.

Sorry for the delay in posting new training videos from Duke Paul of Bellatrix and his School of Bellatrix fighting style, but last week on Thursday October 11th, 2007 my wife gave birth to our third child.  Parker Mathew Elswick.  He weighed in at 7 lbs and 11 ozs at a length of 20".

Look for more videos starting on Monday, October 22nd.

 

Richard

This one demonstrates the slow work involved for how to move the sword foot around to the shield side, during a return, where the shield foot is planted and pushing forwards, and the sword foot is pushing.

This one demonstrates how to do a slide step with the sheild foot during the later prat of a side return, when the sword is again moving forward , and the sword foot is pushing.

This one demonstrates how to stride foward with the sword foot upon return of the sword arm.

There are 4 more videos for the slow work series, but they are specifics.

This movement demonstrates how to recover your back foot after you have slide your other foot foward on an attack or in the case as Duke Paul demonstrates just after a strike.

7 of 7 on Slow Work.  There are some more, but this is the conclusion of the Slow Work videos.

Keeping it slow, follow the rhythmic movements and swinging of a full free form slow drill.  Keeping in mind the movement of the sword, shield and footwork as well as the body during the drill.

Look for 4 more video's next week on some more specific Slow Work drills you can do to incorporate various movements into the drills, especially the last 2 of this series.

I hope you all are enjoying these and that they are usefull to you.  I know they are too me.

Visit the Armour Archive Forums to Ask Duke Paul directly for interpretations or visit his School of Bellatrix Fighting Website for details about his training methods.

Okay, so now we are ready to move to more of a free form movement, which is more indicative of what you will see in an actual contest.

You will want to watch this one several times as there is quite a bit to watch.

Richard

Now we transition from moving forward to moving backwards all in one motion.  Smooth movements and continous swinging.  N

Key here is the movements are all SLOW... yet can easily be applied at a higher level.  These drills can also be done out of armour!

Enjoy!

Building upon the motions added in the 3rd video, movement of the feet and body is incorporated into the motion.  Notice how the blows come as the opposite foot of is moving.  (my observation)

Good stuff!

Enjoy!

3 of 7 in this series.  Now there are 2 and you can see where the swinging motion matches the skating motion.

What do you think?  Good?  Should I just put them all together on one video?  It would just take a bit more time is all.

Let me know by email or better yet, contact Duke Paul on the Armour Archive! or at his website.

The first video was a slow work in the fashion of skating and correlating to attacks.  The second video in this series is the same, but now with a weapon.

 

 

Sorry for the long delay in posting, but I do NOT have a really great editing suite and I do not want to publish the School of Bellatrix videos and content in windows media.

Having said that, I would rather just publish it and get it out there for everyone to enjoy verse sitting on it until I get to a point where I can edit and give you a quality entertainment product. 

There are over 300 clips of video, which his Grace has produced, most of them very small segements and I would love to combine and format sections into longer segments in addition to adding some details and sound.  For now, however, please enjoy these shows and provide comments here for feedback to my self or shoot on over to the Armour Archive and join their Forums where there is a section dedicated to Duke Paul and his Bellatrix Fighting School.  I encourage each and everyone out there to get a group of friends together, pool your money and fly him out to your practice for a weekend.  He is up for it.  I can help facilitate this if needed.

I thank his Grace Duke Paul of Bellatrix for his generosity in allowing me to post these and I hope you thank him as well!  Hoobah!

I will be posting one a day during the work week.

Enjoy!

Richard

Pennsic 36 was fun and here is a bit of video to show how much fun it was.  The first part, about a minute long is of the Unbelted Champions War Point battle between the Midrealm and the East.  I appologize for the quality, as I did not have my tripod with me nor was I able to zoom in prior to lay on and get some good quality action.

Then there is 2 minutes worth of the Belted Champions War Point between the Midrealm and the East.  This part of the video is a bit better quality as I was able to zoom in on some of the action, which also means that you cannot see all the action all the time, but I hope I captured some of the best parts of it.  You might want to keep the audio down a bit as it is NOT good at all, you might even call it very bad!

Enjoy!

Oh and by the way, I was able to get a CD with video's from Duke Paul of Bellatrix school of training, so look for those soon.  Kith went to Pennsic for the very first time as well, so I cannot wait to get him on the line and hear what fun he had!

Richard

Viscount Sir Tristan and I finally get a chance to spar at Pennsic 36!  Having not fought much in the past year, I get smoked... with an under the leg shot, which I had never seen before.  Nice.

 

Oh and Kith was at Pennsic, so look for some good commentary soon.  I also ran into Duke Paul of Bellatrix and he was gracious enough to give to me a CD of his School of Bellatrix Training on it.  He has also given me permission to post some of it up here, so look for the videos soon.

Richard

As Pennsic is here and most of you are already probably there, I look forward to it as I do every year.  The gathering of kindred souls and meeting with friends, who it has been sometime since we had talked or met.  A magical time as always.

This year, however, a household brother of mine and a good friend will be unable to make it to Pennsic, even though he is only a few hours a way.  He is quite ill and having a hard time getting around.  Unfortunately he is also an artist or fortunately if you have heard him before.  He is a musician and makes is living off of teaching others how to play the guitar.  This means that if he is not able to teach, which he currently is not or he would be at Pennsic, then he is not making money. 

I ask all those that enjoy this podcast and listening to me rant sometimes, that please go and puchase a copy of his latest CD from here:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/catapano

He goes by the name of Draco in the SCA and he is a very cool person, so please help him and his family out in their time of need and get some enjoyment out of his music while your at it.

See you all at Pennsic, I will be staying in Company of Outremer's camp in N17 along Chey Ping Way, which is between N16 and N17.  Look for the crosses, not the maltesse ones either.  I will only be there for about 3 days, from Monday-Wednesday probably.

Richard

 

This is a video of the three 15 verse 15 Unbelted Champion melees held at Pennsic 35 for the War Point between the East and Midrealm.

The videos are in series with no division between them and the quality isn't the best, but if you have not seen the melees yet, they are a wonder to behold.

As a side note, be on the lookout for more postings as things are turning around for me and my addition to my home is progressing well (Lisa is pregnant and therefore we need more room!)

Richard

I have been looking forward to this one and we finally lined it up and completed the interview way back on 12-18-2006.  It is finally edited and ready to roll.  I have split it into 2 parts, the first based on the SCA and the second based around his website, Chivalry Today. 

So in this one we talk about the following topics:

So I posted the dagger fight video and had some other ones, but to use our hosting space and keep space for the few interviews we are finishing lately, it doesn't make sense to post up the other videos I recorded.  So Duke Brannos suggested using YouTube, so I did!

Click here for the link to a group I created for myself and fans of the Podcast.  If you want to add a video to the Group, just ask and if it is related, no problems!

 

Richard

So the other day I was at practice, say 2-3-2007, and I am recording some of my fights and there just so happens to be a gauntlet that has been thrown down....

It also happens that these good and rightly noble fighters are fans of the show.  So I tape their 'little' passage of arms, record a short interview after the fight, do some editing and whalla, the Pain Bank TV show is generated! 

Of course, Video takes up significantly more space than our snippets of audio that we produce and I want to know what you all think of it?  I have setup this survey to ask you, our loyal and faithful, audience a few questions about if you like these videos we occasionally post up for you to enjoy.  Here is the survey, so please be honest and let us know what you think!

Here is the conclusion of the  interview with Duke Sir Sean Kirkpatrick Tarragon of Artemisia.  We cover a variety of things: Top 2% of Fighters in the SCA, Young knights, is SCA combat a sport or a martial art, plus much more.

Enjoy!

Kith and Wang

So, I found this on the web and it describes The Pain Bank.  I have modified it a bit and here ya go...

Just like blood banks store blood and sperm banks store sperm, pain banks store pain.

From pinpricks and itches through agonizing toothaches all the way up to the worst gut-wrenching, torture imaginable, they had every kind of pain in their massive iron vaults. From the lightest acceptable blow to the most excessive helm denting pole axe!

Suffering too much pain? Put in a deposit.

Feeling detached, or looking for a little masochistic rush? Head to an ATM. Make a withdrawal.

Feel something. Feel something really bad for a while.

Getting over the pain is the biggest rush, you know.

Just don't fall behind on your interest payments.

Hello and Happy New Year!

We'd like to kick it off with an interview with Duke Sir Sean Kirkpatrick Tarragon of Artemisia.  We cover a variety of things: Top 2% of Fighters in the SCA, Young knights, is SCA combat a sport or a martial art, plus much more.

Enjoy!

Kith and Wang

Just wanted to thank everyone who listens in on our little podcast slice of the SCA.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your family.  Cherish them and enjoy your time together.

Richard and Kith

A 10 time Duke!  2 in the East and 8 in Atenveldt.  He has lineage and is long and consists of many other great fighters.  He has influenced and been a part of both sides of the coasts in the SCA and has some unique experiences. 

We talk a bit about how his first armour was a full suit of Plate!  Talk about taking the plunge!  We talk a fair bit of the recent Pennsic and what his goals were as King of the East.  We also briefly explore a new topic of discussion, such as generational stylistic difference in fighting and some who fall into different catagories.  1st. Gen - The originals who formed the basis of our rules set, who I don't recall, but one would probably be Duke Paul, who sort of falls into the 2nd Gen.  Others in the 2nd Gen would be Duke Brion, Duke Brannos, Duke Palymar, Duke Lucan and others.  The 3rd Gen, who we briefly discuss might be someone like Duke Edmund or Duke Alighinan.  Of course, the 4th Gen would be those making the scene right now, such as Duke Felix, Count Michael and HRM Bardolph.

A bit of history and yet another awesome discussion with one of the great personages of the SCA!  For more information about Duke Brion, check out his household's website here.

ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

Well it has been a year since Kith and I posted our first Podcast up and WOW, it has been one hell of a ride.  During the summer months, we seemed to be able to get about 1 a week up, but as time has gone along it has gotten harder.  We are at about 1 every other week or so and very few Event Reports.  Partially because I scaled back my attendance partially as well as my declining interest in doing it as often. 

There are a LOT of folks out there, who are wonderful and I hope to get to know and interview!  We are recently reminded as a close friend and fellow fighter, who I had the pleasure of knowing over the past decade passed away, Count Sarnac of Ealdomere.  I had hoped to interview him at some point, yet it did not happen.  This is just one of the many reasons I do the interviews, because we are all only blessed with so much time to get to know one another and the SCA is a family of sorts after all.  You can read about Count Sarnac here.  If you knew him or if you can, please consider donating to a fund they have setup for his daughter, Amber.  It is one small way to ease the gapping hole many of us have and especially his wife and only daughter.

You can see our stats from the past year with the picture posted up, coutesy of our web host provider.  Our original blog/podcast was on 11-19-2005 that we were going to do this and our first recording went up on 12-10-2005!

Well I hope you still enjoy our little podcast when we put stuff up Hopefully I find more time to make it happen.  If you really enjoy the show, please consider providing us feedback with comments here on the site, donate some money via the Paypal link at the right and/or buy some Pain Bank Merchandise as it will help cover costs of equipment, the website hosting and make it just a bit more worth the time spent away form our families when we are doing this.

Richard fitzWilliams and Kith the Silent

Well, this one is a bit late, as we recorded it on 8-31-2006 just after Pennsic, but I finally finished editing it!  At the time, Michael was King of Artemisia as well!  I hope you like it as we certainly did.  It was wonderful to meet Michael at Pennsic and cross swords with him, but even more so to get an interview with him and talk about what it is like being a Rock Star at Pennsic, aka Royalty!  As it was his first time there, it was also fun to get to hear his stories about that part.  Oh ya, he is only 29 years old and reigned as an Unbelted King! 

We learn a bit about the kingdom of Artemisia, which is one of those out west big kingdoms.

So visit the web site (www.painbank.com) and leave your comments and questions. 

Get your 14th Century Mafia Shirts there too while they last!