Historical Practice

I've posted a lot of material online about Bolognese swordsmanship. I believe I have touched some people with my work, changed someone's lives, pushed them further along their path of study or lit a burning desire to learn this art in them. At least I would hope so (leave a comment below if you have a story to tell)!

I stumbled upon this video from the summer of 2011, shot on a sunny day at the famous fortress island just outside Helsinki, where we now also run our annual summer camp.

I can't really say whether the video should be considered old or new, but to me it is extremely interesting. It also has almost a whopping 20,000 views! According to YouTube, viewers from over a hundred nations have spent a total of over a month viewing this video. In fact, this is quite astonishing. Viewer retention with a video like this is not great, but I guess those with the most will to learn have endured it all the way to the end. The analytics show a slight increase in interest at the moments when the sword is first used, at the time of the first pair drill, and finally when there are more pair drills after another set of cutting exercises. This is not surprising, but nice to see in practice. But let me return to retention in a moment.

Looking Back

Why this video is so interesting to me is the technical content. It gives me a direct look inside my brain at that stage, and shows how my physical abilities have developed and changed. It is almost a scary thought that these videos will stay accessible for who knows how long (I might remove them but have no plans to), but it is also very useful. In all honesty I cannot remember everything I have posted, so I literally learn from myself by watching these.

And watching this doesn't make me cringe. For 2011, it is pretty okay. In its essence, much of the content has not changed. Evolved a bit, sure, but I still recognize myself doing and teaching many of the actions seen here. I favor the pass with the left foot way less, the footwork in general has been revised to a great extent, and the mechanics of the cuts I use are much more elaborate and systematic. Evolution.

But what is most clear to me is that this video is a collection of somewhat arbitrary techniques executed in a seemingly progressive order, but with no explanation, no real purpose (other than to document the actions) or didactic ambition. Likewise, the material has only been interpreted, but not really broken down and re-organized to follow my thinking. I am not really criticizing my own video, but rather pointing out what has changed in my ideas. Back then it was enough to pour more pieces of the puzzle on the table for others to sort — total ignorance of things like viewer retention.

A Different Approach

I care more — more about quality, of course, but also about what message I send out. As the audience grows it feels as if there is more responsibility as well. And I want to make the material worthwhile. For you, and for myself. What is the point of making a 15-minute video if 80% of viewers only watch the first two minutes? The answer is to target the right things to the right audience. The first short instructional video I created for sale, the System of Guards (which by the way is a good companion to the above video), sports a 40% finish rate of all views. If the video cost more than one euro and fifty cents, the number might be even better, but the point is that by using different channels the right content can be delivered to the right audience.

Every time a YouTube viewer switches away from the above video, it is — in purely marketing terms — a loss for me and by some extension for our community as well. If they switch, they should switch to this website or some other relevant website or video, but if they came to the video by accident, we should still make them watch the whole thing. The 10% of viewers who watched the whole video were probably interested enough that they would have bothered to sign up here and buy the video, at least if the price was correct.

But let's leave aside the argument for commercializing marozzo.com for a moment (I suppose no one ever had a problem with that) and our little e-marketing 101, and steer back to historical fencing and the contents of the featured video. I already mentioned footwork above. That is an area where my students, my colleagues, and I have worked hard to create a true system of stepping based on Marozzo's footwork diagram, that can be used in all sorts of drills and tactical situations. This is something that was entirely absent at the time.

Likewise, the parries and sword-to-sword actions demonstrated are a bit dull and lacking in attitude, just like the monotonous (hilarious) sound effects that mark them in the video. With lots of practice and experimentation with both blunt and sharp swords, we have developed a more advanced understanding of what the bind of the blades is about.

Lastly, even if this video shows the basics, it does so through means of a catalog of actions grouped together in a superficial way, with cuts being one group and pair exercises being another. Sure enough this makes sense, but it lacks didactic structure. It may be the basics of the Bolognese school in terms of basic techniques, but not the basic principles or fundamental building blocks.

The focus on these three highlights the different way of thinking I have developed. These three will also be the topic of my workshop in Dijon(opens in a new tab).