In Praise of Small Spaces

As some of you may already know, our club recently moved from the church fellowship hall at which we were training to a place in our downtown area. This has overall been an excellent move for us – although if I never paint again after all this it might still be too soon! – and will allow us far more options than we ever had before at the church. (Towards that end, keep an eye on our Facebook page for all kinds of awesome classes and seminars we soon will be putting on.)

But, of course, this move hasn’t been without its issues, obviously. Paying an honest to goodness rent rather than a monthly free-will donation has caused a fair amount of anxiety, and then there is always the basic annoyance of any major move. Packing, unpacking, remembering where put the things you’ve “organized”, and in this case, it’s not your socks and underwear but rather training swords, gear, manuals, and the occasional punching bag and a training dummy.

The biggest concern going from a gigantic church fellowship hall to a downtown storefront space was the size. The hall had a pitched ceiling that, at its lowest point, was probably around 15 feet high and likely twice that at its highest. The floor space was literally the size of a basketball court. Suffice it to say, the hall provided adequate space for HEMA activities.

The new place? Well…it’s not quite that big.

Don’t get me wrong, the space is quite adequate. As downtown storefronts go it’s probably on the larger side and provides more than enough space for around ten people to be in there using Longswords safely. It is by no means the size of a shoe box.

Yet at the same time, it is significantly smaller than the church hall. This has inevitably created some changes in the way we train and spar, but I’ve come to find that these have been overall positive changes.

Footwork

Probably the most important and obvious change in how we train and fight is that, because we don’t have the same space we did before, our movements are somewhat limited. However, this has forced us to focus more on proper lateral footwork rather than relying on simply on moving back. We now are forced to focus on entering into the bind and then stepping off, right or left, using proper fuhlen to capture the center rather than simply backing out of range.

While there clearly are tactical reasons a fighter might employ falling back, it can also all too easily become the knee-jerk reaction, one that isn’t necessarily martial or effective.  Being forced to be aware of our footwork and come to the conclusion as soon as possible is certainly not a bad thing, neither tactically nor historically.

As an aside, another unexpected benefit of the smaller space is that it more closely resembles that of the typical tournament circle. Not that we are training people for tournaments, but if someone is so inclined it’s probably good to get accustomed to fighting in a limited space rather than one the size of a basketball court.

Sword control

Associated with the idea of footwork is the sword control once you’re in the bind. The hallmark of the Liechtenauer system of Longsword (which we know full well isn’t the only option out there but it is the once we teach) is to do your work from the bind. The Nuremberg Hausbuch, the treatise we primarily draw from, makes it abundantly clear that we are to keep the point on our opponent threatening them, making only the movements necessary to capture the center again. All of this is, of course, perfectly obvious.

Yet at the same time it can be terribly tempting to suddenly swing your sword about to not so much win the bind using fuhlen but to rather skip the bind altogether. Tempting, that is, when you have the space to do it. When you don’t have adequate space, it forces you to respond appropriately, making you a better fencer as a result.   

A concomitant issue with this is the somewhat limited ceiling space. While at the church hall we had enough space to practice pikes if we really wanted to, the ceilings are much lower at our new place. We are trying to avoid dinging it – especially the florescent lights which pend from the ceiling a bit – so we’re very conscious where our swords are. This once again reinforces the idea of keeping the point on your opponent to threaten throughout the bind, which in turn makes you a better fighter.

Historicity

This is probably more of an opinion thing, but I’ve personally come to appreciate the smaller space in part because I feel it captures a historical element not seen in larger ones. We obviously know duals were often fought in fields with almost unlimited space, and judicial bouts were in public with defined but often spacious limits. However, we also know that Longswords were not always used in the neat, controlled confines and that sometimes it was due to a sudden attack in a limited space.

Perhaps someone was suddenly beset upon in a back alley by another seeking revenge, or a game of chess gone horribly wrong in a hall, or a simple blitz attack on a city street to steal a heavy bag of gold. Perhaps one is traveling through the woods on a narrow cart path and they find themselves confronted by a brigand or two. The possibilities are endless, but obviously, there were numerous circumstances in which the sword was being used in earnest in a space that was less than spacious.

This is, clearly, not to suggest there is anything wrong or ahistorical with training and fighting in a large space. I just feel that being able to manage things in either a spacious venue or one with more cramped space is more consistent with what the historical fighters we try to emulate actually had to do.

⚔

So, if you find yourself looking at small space to take over as your own, at least consider it. It might have a few benefits you might not have considered.

-- Scott