What do you do in practices?

[Elyk]

I've been to several different styles of practices now (...three different ones, in fact ) At one practice, we did a number of different "games" and fun little things that had a small impact on skill, but some inpact none the less. The other was simply devided into teams after group battles and comenced into more group battles. Though one style was fun, and the other was more instructional, I'm having a hard time finding the "happy medium".

Maybe some background information on the realm first, to give ya an idea of what I'm working with. Our average practice draws about 4-6 people out. Every now and again we'll get as much as 8, but we usually wind up with the small 5 or so. On top of this, the common ages are as low as 15 and go only as hight as 19 (myself ). Needless to say, it's hard to keep everyone going happy, let alone do it and ACCOMPLISH somthing. The attitudes vary too, just to add another deminsion. We have one who likes to simply hack and slash till death, two of us would LIKE to have a little skill/smarts in what we do, one of us is there for...no REAL reason other than to hang out with friends, and another who would like to see something above the level of swordplay. So needless to say, there are groups from different walks, and are all reletivly new to the sport (.75 years-2/3 years of experience).

My question is this: How do I integrate some drills or games to up the skill level, but do it descretly to the point where it seems like we're just messing around? My main objectives are as fallows:

1) Fun
2) Skill
3) Friends
4) Exersize

So, what do you people usually do at you practices that you find both fun and good for skill? How long do you usually practice at a time? Basically anything you can tell me to give me an insight in to what your practices are generally like.

[Ora]

Weapons pile cutthroats are interesting ways to see what weapons you can use in a pinch.
Start with a regular cutthroat for two captains or randomly pick two people.
Then, pile all weapons into the center of a circle. Only the two people start off with any weapons (of their choice)who are at the center of the circle to guard the weapons. When lay-on is called, everyone rushes to the pile of weapons to see what they can get while the two in the center try to keep people from getting to the weapons. As people get to the weapons the cutthroat begins.

[Dacian]

also, something that's kinda fun, and really helps comradity and fighting with various people is a small 2man team battle.

Start off with a Free-for-all and have a "ressurection" point somewhere. When someone dies, they go to the "res" point. The next person to die becomes your teammate for a 2man team. Everytime an individual dies, they go to the res point. This way, you can work on fighting with several people with perhaps several different fighting style, and if your teammate dies, you can work on fighting 2-on-1's (ie: 1 person fighting 2). It's great for:

1. having fun
2. increasing your skill with teamwork and various weapon styles
3. you're depending on your friends!
4. and it's great excercise because it will keep going

I will usually end it after some time (maybe ten minutes? depends if people like it or not) and call out "YOUR NEXT DEATH IS YOUR LAST!"
This way people are still fighting, but all good things have to end sometime!

Try it out, my realm seems to thoroughly enjoy it!

[savetuba]

Kill your killer with only blues, or only javs, or only arrows, or only daggers/greens, or only reds.

Difficult, fun, and you learn how to fight the same weapon type.

KyK with everyone having spears and no armor is mad fun.

[Outis]

It's hard when you have a small group, and it's important to keep everyone happy and coming back. Try a variety of different games so everyone can get something they like.

Some fun skill training games for small groups:

-Salad bowl
very similar to what Ora described, but no one starts with a weapon. Everyone starts with their back to the pile of weapons. Someone counts off as people take steps away from the pile after some number of paces, lay on is called, and everyone rushes in to get weapons/get killed. We were playing with 10 second regen to keep it going.

A nice addition to this game is to have someone (preferably not one of the fighters) calling out "switch" randomly at which point all fighters must drop their weapons and find other weapons. If you must have a fighter calling switch, just make sure they don't abuse the power to their own benefit.

-Line battle
have your fighters form a single file line and put one out in front of the line as a challenger. The first person in line rushes the challenger and they fight till one falls. The loser goes to the end of the line and the winner faces the next person in line (keeping any lost limbs). Continue till someone gets all the way through the line, or until you're tired.

Variation: regardless of who wins, the challenger regains all lost limbs and faces the next person in line. Continue till the challenger has faced everybody. Then switch places until everyone in line has a chance to be the challenger.

-Uneven teams.
This is great if you have fighters of different skill levels. Fighters take turns outnumbered 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1. You aren't really expected to win so newer fighters need not feel discouraged by losing. It forces you to improve your skill, especially defense. It also lets you practice field awareness and crowd control that are usually require larger groups. If you attend larger events you'll find that teamwork is one of the most important and difficult skills to practice.

-Goblin battle
A variation on uneven teams. A small number of "heros" faces a much larger army of "goblins." Heros have full armor on every hit location and any weapons they choose and three lives (10 sec regen). Goblins have unlimited lives, but die on any hit (1 limb=death), and may only use one weapon (preferably a blue), no shield, no armor. The first hero to kill 10 goblins wins. The goblins win if they can kill all of the heros (since they only have 3 lives each). The goblins work as a team, but the heros win individually. The heros will need to work together to keep from being overwhelmed but in the end are playing cutthroat.

For your group I might suggest 1 hero to 4 goblins or possibly 2 for 6. This game can feel really fun an silly but gives both sides a lot of practice fighting in/against groups even without a lot of fighters. It works better with a larger group, but still works with a small one.

-Sparring duels
everyone pairs of and fights three duels (usually only using a single blue). After 3 fights, each fighter points out their opponent's greatest strength and weakness. Then everyone switches partners and tries again. Continue until everyone has fought everyone else.

This can be a great training exercise as long as your fighters are mature enough to provide useful feedback.

[Sir_Mel]

One of the games we play fairly is similar to the goblin game described above but I can't remember the name of it. It starts off as a cutthroat with a respawn point. The goal of the game is to reach 10 (or whatever number you choose) kills before the other players. It's a very active game that helps foster quick fighting skills. Players have to balance teamwork by keeping players close to wining from killing again while trying to gain more kills themselves.

[Elyk]

I've played this befor somwhere, but can't remember the details. How exactly does Kill your Killer work? It just seems like there's somthin' i forgot. Does the game simply end when everyone is after one person?

The replies are great. All are put to good use, thanx! Keep 'em commin' all

[Big King Jimmy]

In kill your killer, you come back to life when the person who killed you is killed. Which means that in order to win, you have to kill everyone on the field without dieing.

[Thomas MacFinn]

-Line battle
have your fighters form a single file line and put one out in front of the line as a challenger. The first person in line rushes the challenger and they fight till one falls. The loser goes to the end of the line and the winner faces the next person in line (keeping any lost limbs). Continue till someone gets all the way through the line, or until you're tired.

Variation: regardless of who wins, the challenger regains all lost limbs and faces the next person in line. Continue till the challenger has faced everybody. Then switch places until everyone in line has a chance to be the challenger.

It is important that wounds be retained in this exercise (lost legs stay lost between bouts, etc). It prevents better fighters from standing at the end of the line and pounding on the newbies one after another.

-Uneven teams.
This is great if you have fighters of different skill levels. Fighters take turns outnumbered 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1. You aren't really expected to win so newer fighters need not feel discouraged by losing. It forces you to improve your skill, especially defense. It also lets you practice field awareness and crowd control that are usually require larger groups. If you attend larger events you'll find that teamwork is one of the most important and difficult skills to practice.

We do a variation on this at least once per practice. Somebody will call out "Everybody with more than 5 years in Belegarth on this side, everybody else on the other side". they will occasionally adjust the number of years on the "veteran team" but the odds are always at least 2 to 1 and more commonly 3 to 1.

I would also like to see "challenge bouts" where a small unit challenges everyone else present, regardless of odds.

[Nakamoto Amuro]

Black Lotus did that once, but 2 against 30 aren't good odds in anyones book.

[Mekoot Rowan]

You're just not reading the right books.

[Thorrinn Eikanskaldisson]

Depending on where we go the Dimma Ulfur usually do the unit v the world battles

and I agree amuro as fun as it is... those numbers can hurt sometimes

[Elyk]

"Everybody with more than 5 years in Belegarth on this side, everybody else on the other side".

"Wait, we're all on the same side, does this mean we win?"

We will randomly do this, but it would be a good thing to do constantly. We're all rather familiar with the basic idea of it. What we did for a very short time was to take turns, and EVERYONE at the practice had to take on the rest at once (not as bad as it sounds, usually 1v3).

What are some good games to do for individual weapon improvment? We work decently with teams (as much as we can), but what can I do to up the confidence level as well as the very basic weapon skills? We have a very timid group. To the point that every battle seems to influence them. If they "win" or do well, then they get a lil' bolder. If they feel they did poorly, they're confidince drops rapidly.

[slippy]

we call kill your killer badest mother.
there is a game i made that is close to the goblin one where you have one person with a sheild going against like 3 people without and the person to kill the person with the sheild gets to be him. there are no lives so if the person with the sheild kills them all he can either chose who is next or go as sheild again.
you can do evolution to where you start with the most basic of weapons (usualy rocks) in the center and make people run up and grab then and then run a certain distance away from the pile befor they can fire. after you die you go back to weapons pile (leaving starting weapon on the field because that is where it came from) and get the next weapon in your evolution (usualy decided by the person who started the gaem).

[Nakamoto Amuro]

We don't do it anymore for some reason, but we had God battles. Two teams and each leader had special abilities. One had every hit count as two red hits and healing, while the other had double armor (even if they werent wearing armor) and resurrection.

OR

PMS battles! Men vs. women, only women had every hit count as red, healing, and the ability to kill herself and everyone in a 10 foot radius by yelling "CRAMPS!"

Good times... good times indeed.

[Nakamoto Amuro]

You're just not reading the right books.

We had the book, but there were no pop-up pictures

[Thomas MacFinn]

What are some good games to do for individual weapon improvment? We work decently with teams (as much as we can), but what can I do to up the confidence level as well as the very basic weapon skills?

On the few rare days when we have only a few people, a three-man exercise I've had a lot of success with is: equip one person with a spear and no secondary weapon, one person with a shield and no weapon at all and one person with a single blue. Single blue vs the other two people.

In most cases, the two should win if they work together and lose if they don't.

[Elyk]

Ok, just got outta the first practice in months. Needless to say, everyone is a lil rusty . I just made a fresh batch of weapons (1 blue, 2 red swords, 1...showlin spade?). It seems that at this point the biggest neccesity is simply to practice. As long as we've gone without practices, we need work in just about everthing. So any games you remember being exceptionally fun are much appreciated. The "Kill your Killer" went over well, but apart from that we mostly stuck to 2 sided battles.

Quick question though, what do you guys usually do with rinohiders? There seems a misconception in our group that if their weapon hits yours before it hits you, it doesn't count (i.e. weapons tap, then sword continues to gut "It hit my sword" ) Do you guys deal with this much?

[Nakamoto Amuro]

Quick question though, what do you guys usually do with rinohiders? There seems a misconception in our group that if their weapon hits yours before it hits you, it doesn't count (i.e. weapons tap, then sword continues to gut "It hit my sword" ) Do you guys deal with this much?

Hit them even harder, man. Simple as that. If your weapon hits their weapon but continues with sufficient force and hits them, and the hit is clear then that hit is valid.

[Arrakis]

Yeah, that doesn't sound like Rhinohiding as much as a misinterpretation (willful) of the rules. Explain that yes, if the sword hit you because your block wasn't strong enough to Stop it from hitting you, it counts.

[Thomas MacFinn]

Quick question though, what do you guys usually do with rinohiders? There seems a misconception in our group that if their weapon hits yours before it hits you, it doesn't count (i.e. weapons tap, then sword continues to gut "It hit my sword" ) Do you guys deal with this much?

You have two situations with one solution.

A rhinohider is somebody who knows the rules and tries to pretend that good hits were not. It sounds to me that you just have somebody who needs a bit of education.

In either case, the worst thing to do is yell out “You’re dead” (or any variation of that) on the battlefield.

As soon as possible between bouts and in as calm as voice as possible, ask for the opponent’s opinion of the blow. Something like “I thought in that last bout that I powered through your block. I was curious why you didn’t take it.” Don’t argue, just present your view, ask for his and head on to the next bout.

In either case, one person pulling a person aside is unlikely to change somebody’s behavior but a dozen people, or one person approaching somebody a dozen times, is hard to ignore.

[Thomas MacFinn]

Hit them even harder, man. Simple as that.

My opinion is that you should hit somebody harder only if during your discussion he asks you to.

I have cleanly blocked shots that never touched me only to have the guy throwing the shot "crank it up" and swing harder and then get frustrated when I didn't take his (cleanly blocked) shots no matter how hard he swung.

[Shratisfaction]

Dance

[okita]

In a game where there's absolutely zero force requirement people have to turn it up on a regular basis. In belegarth I can imagine how much worse it could get. After a few gamedays (assuming you talk politely and openly) it's pretty easy to see who's deliberately weaseling the rules and who's trying do be in the right as far as shots go.
If you've made it clear that the rules say nothing like what they're doing, and they continue to do it, they're cheating. Plain and simple. The only reliable solution I've found is to make sure shots are clear, clean, and hard enough that several people in the area know whether it was good. That or just hit so many times with amplified force they don't know what hit to sluff.

Either way, not to derail the thread, a good one's Meatgrinder. You just stand in a circle, number off, and have one person call numbers. When your number is called, you go in. Call as many numbers at a time as you want. Sometimes the last one living gets to call numbers but that gets biased sometimes. The ones who want to get better only call the good ones, the ones who want to win only call the bad ones.

Another one's a base-capturing game.
Each player has so many lives, infinite if you want.
There's several bases bases on the field. You can come alive only at a base that your team controls. (by controls, I mean has a member within so many feet, change the distance up as desired or required for your group. When two groups have members nearby, the defending team controls. If niether was there first, it isnt captured until one team has control)
You can mess with the death counts as much as you want, (by death count of course I mean the amount of time it takes to come back to life after dying) but the way we usually do it is we have five bases. and the death count is 300 seconds. Each base your team controls reduces that by fifty seconds.
It sounds a lot more complicated than it really is in application.

The best thing for skill development I've seen though is just to have the better fighters fight more than one of the lower end fighters, to the point where it's even. Everyone gets a challenge aproppriate to his level, noone gets bored with only losing or winning, and everyone gets a LOT of exercise with running and fighting at the same time.

[Elyk]

Thanx for the advice. The only compication (so far as the games) is that we have a relativly small area to practice in. We have troubles fitting battles of 3v3, and 2v2 can get crowded as well . It's in a small wresting room, but we're glad to have it, lucky too. I like the meat grinder idea, but the base idea would be hard to pull off in the small room. But everthing we CAN do, I'll be glad to attempt. So please, do keep them comming.

[Arrakis]

There are many other versions of the Meatgrinder:

Form two lines facing one another single file: 321 -> <123> <-1

is probably the best variation for so small a group.

[Thomas MacFinn]

A nice exercise for a small space is a bridge battle. Mark the area so it is divided into "shores", "bridge" and "moat/water/lava/etc". Step in the lava/moat/whatever and you are dead.

If the edge of the bridge is just marked with tape, this scenerio needs a marshal on either side of the bridge for those folks who step off without knowing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-CpcwpI3gE

[Thomas MacFinn]

Here's a variation Judas introduced last Belegarth practice using stepping stones instead of a bridge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw69j7UvXy0

[Elyk]

That bridge battle was insane! Couple quick questions tho. Do you play until everyone is dead, or until one side reaches the other? That, and I was wondering what was the best choice for "stepping stones.". Granted, we are barrowing a wrestling room, so we have mats that we don't want to damage in any way. But on top of that, what would be the best thing to use? Are normal sized hoola-hoops to big, or cumbersone? And should I put them relativly close to each other, or should I make it a distance that you would have to jump to?

And thanx again, the videos were really helpfull. I've seen one or two by Magpie (i think) that were really great to watch (thanx Mag.), but do you know of many others that are primarily of simple practices or small group games?

[savetuba]

on top of that, what would be the best thing to use? Are normal sized hoola-hoops to big, or cumbersone?

Try using rope, either thick rope or colorful rope.

Equal teams. Each team has the same weapons the other does. Change out people after every 3rd round. Makes people focus on team work as well as skill building with the weapon they have.

Another variant on bridge battles are ship battles.
Landing:
Instead on one wide bridge you have 2 narrow (1 person wide) gangways that lead off the ship and onto land(note* place them on far sides to make the game harder). people on the land may not board the ship. If there is an archer on board you must wait for him/her to waist all available ammo.

Boarding:
2 small squares connected by 2 narrow gangways. To win you must take the other ship without loosing your own. (basically kill the other team) Shield checks are devastating as are glaives.

[slippy]

round robin. the first to die on the winning team joins the losing team. it helps even out teams and then sooner or later there will either be one person against the rest or you almost take turns losing. makes it to where one team doesn't always win.

[Outhro Youkker]

Gauntlet of 5 people, 2-3 rounds straight. Your endurance will be tested quite hard because the constant bursts of on and off fighting.
Especialy after one person gets pummeled for a bit and finish their round, soon after, someone will be quickly showing up to fight them. So there is a contant test of endurance on the whole group.