The problem with trying to learn how to fight is that the usual process for learning something doesn't really work as well. To some degree it's all just trial by fire and you learn how to do the right thing by being punished repeatedly for doing the wrong thing. The usual process for learning something new by breaking it down into its component pieces and then working through them one at a time, correcting your mistakes as you go, doesn't work out on a fighting field. There is no such thing as learning PART of combat. As soon as lay on is called you need to instantly be able to move your feet, swing your weapon, block incoming shots, and take hits that someone lands on you. That is the MINIMUM requirement to be able to be out on the field and actually participating in the stuff going on. You can of course stand there, fail to block, fail to swing and simply wait for someone to hit you but then you aren't REALLY being a part of the action.
Now there's something to be said for the difference between going out and having fun as opposed to taking the game seriously by trying to get better. No one is under any obligation to learn how to be an effective fighter and even when you have learned to be an effective fighter you aren't supposed to stop having fun. If anything learning how to master yourself and your weapons should add to the joy you experience from fighting. There are some people who never learn to swing a sword because they're casual fighters. They run around behind people and try to back other fighters because they have neither the skill nor the confidence to fight them face to face. That's fine. Don't demonize those people.
But assuming a person does actually want to become proficient at fighting then we go back a paragraph. There's a certain base level of skill that's required to really even play regardless of a person's level of effectiveness and as a new person it's all pretty overwhelming. That having been said there are things you can do that will make that transition a little bit less painful for the new person.
Ignorance is Bliss
The first piece being that if a person doesn't need to know about a rule or other bit of information in order to participate out on the field as it currently is, DO NOT TELL THEM. That doesn't mean don't teach someone safety calls because from my perspective those are always relevant; what this means is that if a person is stepping onto the field for the first time and there is no armor, you don't need to explain to them the armor rules. Likewise if there are no reds, they don't need the red rules right then and there. If there are no projectiles, skip that bit for the time being.
This also extends to teaching a person new skills. While someone like myself has a wealth of information to draw on when teaching new skills, unloading 13 years of theory on someone about how and why you hold your arm a certain way for the guard, is not going to be helpful to them. This doesn't mean that you can't answer questions if prompted, but at least initially just teach them the bit they need to know (eg, put your arm HERE to be in proper guard). When they've mastered the skill then you can talk more about why you had them learn it that way and go over the variations that exist for that particular skill. Giving a person a PARTIAL explanation for why you're teaching them a particular thing may also be helpful when trying to correct a bad habit or bad behavior, but again the full nuance of every possible alteration to a block/strike/bit of footwork is going to be too much.
Be Transparent
The counter point to leaving out bits and pieces of information is make sure you let the other person know that you're leaving things out. There's nothing quite like a vet ambushing a new person with a bunch of rules they don't know about to kill them. Having extra rules thrown on at the last second is confusing and all frustrating when you're trying to get a grasp on how exactly fighting works.
Similarly when teaching someone a shot/block/bit of footwork make sure that you're clear that the thing you're teaching is your own style. Everyone has their own subtly different style and if you want to teach someone that then good on you for contributing to the community. The danger however is that multiple people try and teach someone different styles which leads to your new person becoming very confused. Generally speaking ask them to show you what they know and then tweak that, rather then try to have them start from scratch. If you can, keep teaching them the thing they already knew, even if it's not how you do things. If you are going to teach them something different, then again, clarify that it's your version.
K.I.S.S.
Keep it simple. Many bits of fighting have a ton of variation and subtlety to them that can take time to unravel. As it stands even with a good understanding of the rules there are still some grey areas in there. (You'll notice we've got a project to try and clean that up some :-P). Whenever possible try to reduce the amount that you need to teach someone at any given time. This is different from simply leaving things out. I'm not saying for instance, don't teach a person footwork because it's too complex, I'm saying teach them the simplest, easiest steps first. Teach them how to do one step well before teaching them how to do any other step and only after they've mastered that first step do you teach them variations on it and then other steps. Yes, I know, it's tedious. But getting good fundamentals is as important as it is time consuming.
A person over the course of their fighting career is going to benefit much more from having learned to do one step well then they will have from learning how to throw one trick shot. Sure, that trick shot might let them beat all other new people, but new people don't stay new people for long. Either they drop out or they get better which means that the trick shot your new person learned won't work for long regardless. So be patient. Give them time. Let them work on each thing slowly rather then trying to do everything well all at once.
Out of the frying pan
Sometimes the best way to learn is just to do. When trying to teach someone a new thing it is acceptable to punish them for the same mistake over and over again. If I am teaching someone to guard their arm and I see a chicken wing, I'm going to shoot for that shot every time. My goal with this is not to try to leave a bruise or otherwise injure the person from repeated strikes, but rather to isolate a particular skill (guarding their arm) and to force them to try to learn that thing by making it relevant to their survival over and over again. Typically I'll teach a person how to protect part of their body and then ONLY swing for that target zone until I can't hit it any more. This will likely STILL leave bruises because over the course of a fight getting hit in the same place over and over again does that. My hope however is that teaching a person to guard that area while pulling my shots some will make them less likely to get trucked in that target zone in the future. There's something to be said for training but eventually you also have to turn that into doing. There's a real difference between knowing the theory behind something and being able to actually execute on it.
Swiss army knife
There are MANY distinct skills that are required to be even a moderately competent fighter and many many more in order to become a highly skilled fighter. They don't come all at once, and each individual skill still requires that you work at it. As one of the more notorious examples, hit taking is actually a skill related to fighting. To be able to judge where you were hit, how hard you were hit, what you were hit by, when you were hit by that thing and then to respond in the appropriate manner as instantaneously as possible is by no means a trivial thing to do. Asking a person to do this when they are also full of adrenaline just makes it even harder because adrenaline as a mechanism in our system has been designed so that we aren't supposed to feel pain. This skill starts out on a fundamental level at being able to notice you got hit and where so that you can at least eventually take that damage. As your skill at doing this thing increases you can take the damage faster and more accurately notice where it hit you in addition to how hard. Once you've got that piece you can figure out when you got hit in the sequence of swings. After that you can figure out what it felt like you got hit with so you can distinguish between a stab, a flat, a haft, etc. But it all takes time. As you do it more you get better at it and your processing speed increases. But if a vet walks up to a new fighter and lights them up it's going to take a while for the new fighter to catch up. It's important to remember that they aren't sluffing deliberately, they are just still developing that skill. Blocking, swinging, aim/accuracy, control over the force/speed of a swing, footwork, maneuvering at high speeds, field awareness, dealing with arrows and other projectiles, not shot calling, taking shots, communicating damage, all of these are skills that a person has to learn. They won't happen overnight so work on the most important things first. Fortunately not every one of those skill is critical to being able to participate so you can teach them in bits and pieces.
If you're new and reading this.
Take heart. We were all terrible once (myself very much included). Ask questions. Try hard. It may not seem like you're improving if the gulf between your skill level and your opponents is too great but in all likelihood it's just because you can't see your own progress. If you ever get the opportunity fight other new people, ESPECIALLY after you've been fighting/training with vets. You'll be amazed at how much you've grown.
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