Physical vs Verbal Reminders

Recently I had the wonderful opportunity to take a class on mixed doctrine Destreza taught by David Pascal and Danny Gómez. I hadn’t studied any 18th century fencing before and my academic grasp on Destreza isn’t all that great (too busy reading all the Bolognese and Florentine manuals), so it was a nice opportunity to step out of my comfort zone. David and Danny are both incredibly hard working fencers and I got to see them absolutely mow over pretty much anyone they crossed blades with, including one of my long time teachers. If you ever get the chance to train with either of them, I highly recommend it. Even more so if your Spanish is better than this here gringo’s.

Anyhow, there was a ton of great material the class went over, but there was one thing in particular that really stood out to me. Whenever David sets up in his rapier or smallsword guards, he does so with his front heel lifted.

It’s only something I’ve been playing with for a few weeks, but I’m finding that it not only helps fill a hole in my game, but also demonstrates an even larger principle we all can benefit from.

Something I’ve been struggling with in my rapier game for as long as I can remember is having my weight slowly shift more and more on to my front foot as a match goes on. Not only is front-weighting against what Giganti wants me to do, but more importantly is slows down my lunge considerably. If my weight is on my front foot and then I need that foot to move, I know have to take the weight off and kick the foot forwards. A better answer is to keep my weight on my back foot and then push off with both the glutes and the quads in that leg all without having to pause to move my weight back.

I’ve tried getting myself to do this for years, but no matter how much time I’ve spent in practice thinking the words “keep your weight back” whenever I look at video of myself I see that some kick lunge popping up time and time again. It didn’t matter how many told times I told myself to do something the right way, my body just wouldn’t listen. While it’s not all the way in my bones, David’s lifted heel has finally fixed this problem.

Right now I’m in the middle of a ton of research diving into how we as human learn to do physical tasks and it turns out that people giving us verbal cues is one of the least effective ways of getting this to happen. Humans evolved speech so much later than movement that it just isn’t a great way to get your body to change what it’s physically doing. How many times did you hear your dance teacher say, “Point your toes” or your fencing coach say “Move your feet!”? The reason they had to keep saying it over and over again is because just saying it didn’t get it into your bones. The human brain is an incredibly efficient machine, so unless something is physically making us change how we move, that change is going to be incredibly difficult to bring about.

I kept trying to use verbal reminders “shift your weight back” in my rapier stance, but it never really clicked. Once I raised my front heel, though, everything fell into place. With my heel lifted and my toes still on the ground, it’s incredibly difficult for me to end up in a front-weighted stance. As well, it can be pretty hard to tell during any given moment exactly how far your weight is shifted towards one direction or another. However, it’s really easy to tell whether your heel is touching the floor or not. By substituting a verbal cue with a physical one I gave my body a constraint with a clear pass/fail it could understand in its own language.

What are some verbal cues you’ve had trouble getting your body to listen to? What are some physical ones you’ve found work for you?

For a copy of my debut book, “Bolognese Longsword For The Modern Practitioner” you can order it for yourself (either print or digital) from the links on my website, FoolOfSwords.com

Photo credits: Malta Historical Fencing Association, David Pascal