Shield Kin

The fight starts before the armor, before you pick up your stick, and before you step onto the field. It begins with an individual that is devoted to himself and understands the gravity of taking up arms against his fellow man.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Improving Perceptions.

On 10:37 PM by Unknown in     No comments
Following discussions about reaction times, with my knight and collective training group, arose this question: What can we do for our sport to specifically train our reaction time?

There are several webpages that can be found with general Google searches, here are a few of them:

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/reaction.htm

This one is about professional athletes using perception predict outcomes:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-06/ff_mindgames

Here is "A Literature Review on Reaction Time" report that has a lot of interesting items on factors effecting reaction times:

http://biology.clemson.edu/bpc/bp/Lab/110/reaction.htm




Also, there is a difference between visual and audible response. Sometimes we have had the "trigger" person stand behind the pell with a 6 foot baton held ~12" above it, and the "go" was on the baton strike to the pell.

Yet another variation is to number the strike points 1-4 and the "go" is the call of which # to strike. This introduces decision into the reaction; Is the strike reaction fast and correct?

Talking Stick

On 10:29 PM by Unknown in     No comments
The theme for last week was reaction, quickness and speed (which could be paraphrased as "explosive response").

On the pell, put a 2" square of different colored tape on each side of the "head" and on each "thigh".

1) The striker stands on-guard (use a shield) and says ready to the referee.
2) The referee waits a random 1-5 seconds and shouts "Go!".
3) The striker explodes their shot to hit the 2" target.
4) Repeat steps 1-3.
5) Repeat steps 1-3.
... (after 10 strikes at target)
12) Change target to the next tape mark and repeat 1-3.
13) Repeat 1-3.
...
42) Switch people and start over.

This yields 40 shots per person, 10 each at the four tape marks. The on-guard position does not need to remain the same, in particular, for the different targets.


Things to keep in mind:

This drill should occur early in the practice session when everyone is fresh. There should be some warmup work first (maybe 5 minutes of light striking combos per person). If you think the striking technique looks incorrect during the drill, work with that person to correct the technique in future practice sessions, before more training sessions.
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