Anne clattered up the front steps and into the house, slamming
the front door behind her.
”
How was the Strand?
”
we asked.
Anne clattered up the front steps and into the house, slamming the front door behind her.
“How was the Strand?” we asked.
“Nice,” she replied. “We’re upstairs. They have a restaurant kind of thing downstairs.”
“Are you in the front room with the big windows?” I asked nostalgically. Oliver once attended an art class in that front room.
“No, we’re in back.”
“They used to have a trampoline back there,” Oliver recalled.
“They don’t now. We have wooden floors and high ceilings. No more Hand of God.”
We laughed. When Anne first started taking broadsword lessons, three years ago, the class had been held in her instructor’s back yard in South San Jose. When the rains began, class moved into the garage. The garage, though dry, had rafters which would, unfortunately and unexpectedly, arrest a downward plummeting cut such as a fendente or squalembrato. “Hand of God!” the combatants would exclaim, and fight on.
From the garage, the kids‚ class moved to a student’s back yard in San Martin, thence to a pavilion belonging to the grandparents of another student, in the hills east of Gilroy. Now, huzzah, we have a location at the historic Strand Theater in the heart of downtown Gilroy, on Monterey between Fourth and Fifth, mere blocks from our house, and less than a block from Garlic City Coffee and Tea. We parents will be able to sneak out for cappuccino.
While the kids’ class wandered, the adults’ classes moved to La Salle, located in a warehouse in downtown San Jose. For some reason, most of the adult sword students live in San Jose or north, while most of the kids live in Morgan Hill or south. Go figure.
Techniques for the classes are painstakingly translated from manuals first written in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, including the Flos Duellatorum, written in 1410 by Fiore Del Libre, then literally hammered out by and on the bodies of the instructors of the Davenriche European Martial Artes School. The sword techniques resurrected by DEMAS were eventually modified into modern fencing; pugilism was tamed into modern boxing.
Now that he has a location, Sir Steaphen plans to open an adult long sword class in Gilroy, and perhaps in time a women’s self-defense class. (We call Steaphen Fick “Sir” for the same reason that a karate instructor is called Sensei: respect. We respect him because he beat a mort of people at various tournaments.)
Anne is getting plenty of women’s self-defense in her sword class, and getting it in a non-threatening way that increases her self-confidence and awareness without causing her any fear or anxiety. She’s learning poise and grappling, along with her standard cuts, thrusts, and parries. She’s exercising her mind as well as her muscles, heart, and lungs.
Every class begins with stretching and strengthening exercises. From there, the students may practice their standard parries, or their cuts, or their thrusts. Sometimes they practice grapples, or how to take a fall featly. The adults use wooden waisters or metal swords; the kids use bamboo shenais, especially modified with the addition of pommels and quillions.
Sometimes Sir Steaphen brings his armor. The students play squire, taking turns dressing each other up in breastplate, back-plate, greaves, bracers, codpiece, and helm. They stagger around, attempting to run or swing a sword. The armor weighs almost 50 pounds; Anne weighs 67. But the weight is well-distributed.
The activity that lights up their eyes and keeps them coming back week after week is free-play, when two students don fencing masks and gloves, and face off, trying to apply all they’ve learned to score hits off each other. Back and forth and around they weave, exchanging flurries of blows, until eventually, at Sir Steaphen’s command, they disengage, pull off their masks, and shake hands: sweaty, out of breath, grinning.
Kids‚ Long Sword is held Monday and Wednesday, from 5 to 6 p.m., at the Strand in downtown Gilroy. The first class is free. Subsequent classes cost $60 per month. Classes include Long Sword, Rapier and Dagger, Children’s Long Sword, Women’s Self-defense, and Pugilism. For more information, contact Sir Steaphen, 408-857-0120, or www.knight2day.com.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and a former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch every Friday.
