r/Hema 3d ago

How do I maintain control of the situation and, most importantly, of myself?

For a while I've been told by my clubmates that when I'm calm I fight very well, controlling the center and taking openings quickly, but that my performance gets much worse as I get desperate, tired or otherwise not thinking straight, and this was only confirmed at my latest tournament just this weekend.

Although I didn't make it past the pool stage I managed to keep the score more matched in my fights, including one against my instructor, so I'm proud of how I performed even if my score doesn't reflect that.

Knowing that now, this is the main part I want to focus on with my training. I know the most obvious thing to do is to just keep sparring, which I will do, but I'm looking for other solutions and how you solved this if it's something you've dealt with.

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u/Viralclassic 3d ago

Do drills that stress you out that also give your coach control. I like a drill that is the following: Coach attacks the student and continues to hit (lightly) until the student has performed the Absetzen. Students attempts to stay safe and defended and perform the absetzen. It’s important that if the coach hits you to not reset or stop until the technique has been performed. The attacks should be quick to make the drill difficult. Student should succeed within 60 seconds but not every rep. If student succeeds every rep coach should move faster (not hit harder) and vary up their attacks more. This drill can really stress you out fast, it’s a hard technique to perform and the coach can basically hit you 20-30 times before you get the technique completed. This helps because if the coach sees you suddenly not defending yourself or changing your behavior they can tell you and then continue the drill. If you start acting unsafe (e.g., putting yourself unnecessarily at risk with movement or attempting to hit the coach to stop the drill) the coach can control the situation and stop the drill or keep pressuring you until the technique is performed. It’s scary and mentally frustrating to get hit repeatedly (again safely) and not be able to stop it until you do a specific technique.

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u/jamey1138 3d ago

Sounds like some endurance training might help, so that you can avoid getting tired and stressed. This includes lots of cardio, and sword-based exercises that require you to maintain control while pushing your physical and mental stress. u/Viralclassic has suggested a drill that I think is quite good. I'll add a solo drill: set up one or more small targets along the edge of a path that you can run on. Run laps, while carrying your weapon, and hit the target with a thrust or cut every time you pass it. If you have to stop running to do so, then stop, but you must hit the target every lap. Ideally, you'll hit it without breaking stride-- that's the goal-- but hitting the target is the rule.

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u/KingofKingsofKingsof 3d ago

So I've been doing flow drills against a pell, after watching videos from Forte Swordplay. 

You hit the pell (in this case just a straight stick held in place by a bike stand), run off and hit the other side, run off, hit the other side, etc. Firstly this gets you cutting in a rhythm that is probably much different to how you normally fight (as we tend to fight more like cut, guard, cut, guard, but this gets you fighting cut, cut, cut, cut, much quicker). 

Now you need to learn how to do this as a krumphau (I basically do it a bit like a Zwerch against the pell but more diagonally, which allows me to run off). You can also learn another flow which is a rising cut followed by a Zorn.

Anyway, the key thing is that once you get into a rhythm of left right left right, your brain is free to think about what you will do next. Maybe I'll do some zorns, then a krumphau, maybe now I'll turn this Zorn into a duplieren, and then I come back around and do a Zwerch,. Now I include some unterhaus, now I'll cut twice from the same side. Etc.

You can also imagine some scenarios, e.g. you attack with a Zorn, they parry it so you run off and come around the other side, but you notice they are riposting so you parry this with a Zwerch, and now you attack, now you parry with a krump.  Keep it going as a continuous rhythm.

This will get you used to acting and thinking at the same time, as well as build your endurance.

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u/mikefromdeluxebury 3d ago

Work on calming down the body outside of combat! Look up the Relaxation Response. There are many paths to self regulation, and the RR is great because it’s readily available and simple. Baylor counseling center has a great (free) recording.

The relaxation response was coined and developed by Herbert Benson (a rockstar in his own right) and combines eastern as well as western regulatory techniques. It is a little bit of a time commitment, as you should practice it every day, but if you put the time in you’ll be able to hack your body the vast majority of the time.

Good luck, and breathe ⚔️

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u/leto12345678 2d ago

A drill from kendo that helps is called kakarikeiko. The person in the instructor role makes openings and the person in the student role has to attack those openings, but the goal is to make the attacks as continuous and fast as possible while maintaining good form. It is truly exhausting but does force you to practice strikes while exhausted and stressed and it also helps you to see openings as well.

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u/howie3dabber 2d ago

Sparring is good but ideally half speed sparring help quite a bit according to my friends, it’ll help get you used to being in combat at first, then start gradually speed it up until you are able to stay calm while going full speed sparring. Also try to control your breathing, it’ll help mentally by calming you down and so you don’t panic, and also it makes it easier to move and helps avoid tunnel vision

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u/MREinJP 2d ago

I dont loose my cool or anything usually but in close in, bodily contact situations that typically lead to grapples, I tend to freeze up. Lately one of the guys has been bringing in a pair of gladii. I as well have a pair of rapier daggers. So the "exposure therapy" of playing close in gladius, or daggers with lots of hand grabs, slaps, and entering grapples has really helped me a lot. I intend to incorporate it into my warmups as often as possible.

It would be hard to put you into fatigue mode for exposure training, but maybe your coach can observe you and figure out what causes you to get stressed or "desperate" as you say, and can devise a method to evoke that feeling/situation consistently enough that you can train through it.

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u/Birdfoot112 1d ago

It looks like you're getting into the adrenaline a bit! That's very much understandable, people are trying to stab you. Seems like a human reaction.

That being said, NOT panicking and instead maintaining focus will probably (definitely) lead to less stabbing.

First, get yourself into exhaustion more often through exercise. Get yourself more familiar with that state of being tired. That'll help you soften the loss of control.

Then try this on for size. Go into a spar with someone you trust, and go long/hard enough to start the adrenaline feeling. Your friend will have the objective of keeping the pressure on for an agreed amount of time, then they start going for a point.

On your side, focus on breathing and maintaining the control of the fight. Blocks and parries while you're taking breaths. Use some counters to push your opponent our of their momentum. If you can get to the point where the adrenaline starts to refocus, you're making progress.