I've got the plague...

I'm ditching on my post this week on account of feeling pretty crappy.  When I rebound I'll post a delayed thing.  Sorry folks, them's the breaks.

Teaching

There's a difference between being a good fighter and being a good teacher.  Just because you know how to do something doesn't necessarily mean you can teach someone else to do that thing you know.  Teaching people is a whole other skill set from actually being a good fighter.  In many cases you can be a good teacher even at a point where you're relatively new, or you're an old fighter that's passed your prime.  Over years of trial and error here are some things that I've learned about teaching other people how to fight.  Some of it's theory, some of it's psychology and it's all presented in no particular order.

General Principles

Everyone learns differently

Everyone learns differently, which means that even if you have a system down for how to teach a particular skill set (say footwork) some people may not understand it as you present it to them.  There's nothing wrong with them for not immediately understanding your particular method and trying to get them to learn in a way that doesn't suite them is going to make both you and your student very frustrated.  Telling a person to grind on something until they get it works for some individuals but not others.  If a person doesn't want to grind on a skill until they've learned it then trying to force them to do so isn't going to get you anywhere.  What I've learned to do in the case where my way of teaching something doesn't seem to be working is to enlist someone else that I've taught the relevant skill set to explain.  Sometimes it's just a matter of re-phrasing something that you've already said so that it clicks in their brain.  Sometimes it can just be repeating something you've already said at a time when the student is prepared to hear those words.  The other solution that I've found to this particular problem is to have several drills that all cover more or less the same thing.  This way you can rotate through drills until you find one that works for the particular person that you're working with.  Once they've got a handle on the skill that you're trying to impart to them then you can roll through other drills that were (at least at first) less obvious to them.

Fake it till you make it

It takes a fair amount of repetition before a skill becomes so second nature that you no longer have to actively think about it's execution.  This is part of why some of the more advanced, meta skills can't be learned by new people.  As an example, in order to have good field awareness you need to be able to both focus on the person in front of you as well as keeping an eye on the rest of the field.  If you spend all of your focus on fighting the person in front of you then you won't be able to also keep an eye on the other fighters around you.  It's important to make sure that you don't overload a person as they begin to learn new skills.  Even if your student is eager to learn  more skills you need to make sure that they've actually internalized whatever you've taught them before you move on to new things.  In the same way that you've got a finite amount of focus, and the more you spread it out between different things, the less focused you are on each thing, you have a finite amount of space for processing new information and the more you try to learn at one time the more of that information gets lost and will have to be re-learned.  Which leads me into my next point...

Start with the basics

People have the tendency to want to learn the most advanced, flashy things that they can right out of the gate because it looks "cool".  Unfortunately trick shots tend to 1) not be very effective, 2) are high risk, low reward and 3) tend to require excellent fundamentals before you can execute them properly.  The last trick shot I taught myself was a spin/wrap to my opponents sword side leg (assuming they're a righty).  To throw this swing I need to gauge the distance between myself and my opponent correctly, step sideways, spin, block my back and then time a wrap shot at the extent of my reach.  It is an absurdly complicated shot so even though looks pretty cool when I can execute it correctly and has been great against slower opponents with big boards, it's a trick shot because it's never the first thing I'd want to throw.  95% of the time I'm happy to just throw a pretty standard leg sweep.  It looks boring because it's just a loop, but it's super safe to throw, it has a high rate of success and it's rare for me to mess up while throwing it.  Fundamentals might be boring but getting good at them is the fastest way to become a better fighter.  Also most of the skills that a person learns become more effective when they have good fundamentals.  As an example every swing you can learn to throw benefits from having good footwork and positioning.  In the same way that getting the first layer of an all foam constructed sword correct is important because any imperfections will be magnified with each additional layer of foam getting fundamentals correct is important because any flaws with the basics will make every other learned skill worse.  For some starting drills you can check out a post on basic footwork or arms.

Psychology

Ego is the enemy

This splits in a number of different directions so let me try to start with context.  As human beings we all have some kind of ego that we take into the sport (and everywhere else).  Too little ego can be bad because you'll be afraid of swinging and you may spend all your time after fights getting down on yourself.  With too much ego you'll be reckless; making mistakes you shouldn't make and you'll tend to blame others for your shortcomings rather then look at what you could have done better.  It's important to make sure, especially when you're learning, that you keep your ego in check and focus on improving for the sake of improving rather then for the sake of your own glory.

Fall in love with the process

If you fight to be a badass and you don't accomplish that goal then you're likely to despair.  You'll be disappointed because there's a gap between what you want and where you are.  The solution is to fall in love with the process of becoming better.  If your goal isn't to become a badass but rather to just improve, or as I've phrased it before, to learn to suck less, then it's much easier to meet your goals and see tangible progress.  If you honestly enjoy the process of learning/improving then getting good is something that will come as a result of that process over time whereas if your focus is on becoming great every time you fall short you'll wind up kicking yourself, which tends to detract from the process of improvement.

Relentless

I think the quote goes something like "the master has failed more times then the student has even tried".  I have a particular thing where my brain is somewhat defective in regards to learning new physical things (it's called dyspraxia if you want to look it up).  What this has meant for me is that I've had to drill on new motions until it all becomes muscle memory and second nature.  My brain simply cannot figure things out on the fly the way some other people's minds can.  That same process though is good for anyone.  Learning to do a swing properly and then repeating it until it becomes second nature will mean that when you're out on the field you don't have to think about it's execution.

Focus

If you're focused on the task at hand then you can avoid some of the pitfalls related to ego.  Don't give yourself a chance to beat yourself up for your mistakes, simply try again.  If you spend less time moping about your errors and simply focus on the thing that went wrong and correcting it, then you'll improve.  But, by the same token, if, after every loss, you're too busy feeling bad about it then you'll pass up your opportunity to learn from the mistakes you made.  Take a moment to play the fight back in your head.  Fighting comes down to throwing a shot that can hit and being able to block your opponents swings.  So figure out what shot they threw that you didn't block.  Figure out which shots you threw that didn't get past their guard and figure out how to make them connect.  Most fighters, especially veterans who love the sport, will be happy to show you how they executed that last shot they threw.  

A random story

There was a fighter I used to work with who had terrible honor because she got frustrated when she got killed.  When I trained her as part of the initial generation of the unit "The Blades" at first it was pretty painful.  But when she got into the flow of things her honor was pretty much spot on during our unit practices, (the rest of the time there were still some issues...).  The thing that we did as a unit was be in constant combat so that you didn't have much time to rest or think.  This meant that you were more reliant on the muscle memory that you'd built up rather then your ability to think on your feet.  The goal was to push oneself to try and surpass however good they thought they were.  By pushing a person they could more easily focus on the fight because they didn't have as much time to think or get in their own way.  We taught people not only to fight honorably, but also to die fast so that you could get right back to fighting.  I found that when dying was less stigmatized because we placed value on learning and trying rather then on succeeding or winning it became much easier to get people to get more fights in by dying quickly and without the usual self-recrimination that tends to go with failure.  When her downtime for fighting became on the order of seconds she stopped wasting those seconds moping because she knew that if she simply got back up we could reset and continue.  I haven't had a group to train with at that intensity in quite some time but it's a set of memories I look back on fondly.  

Mistakes

I've been teaching people how to fight for 10 out of the 12 years that I've been fighting.  When I first started teaching what I knew it was almost nothing.  But even more then not being experienced myself I wasn't a very good teacher because I had no experience teaching much of anything.  All of that stuff came with time.  Most of the fighters I know now weren't around when I first started learning.  They have no idea how bad I used to be.  Running into one of the fighters who was there when I first started learning at Battle For the Ring gave me a reminder of the person I was back when I first started.  I wanted to write a post of two pieces.  The first being how I learned what I've learned which was mostly by making a series of mistakes.  The second being how I learned to teach people things over the years. (That last bit may be it's own post).

OW... alright, not that way

Face Forward
As a new fighter I had a tendency to fight with my back arched so that my face was forward when I was fighting.  Theoretically having your face forward will mean there are fewer target locations for an opponent to swing at.  However, this also means that rather then learning to block by either getting out of the way or using your weapons to intercept the shot you're basically choosing to just put your face in the way.  If someone cares about you then they'll tend to avoid taking that shot but in the context of a larger field fight it's a great way to get a concussion.  Especially as you get into larger fights the chances that your face will intercept a swing that wasn't meant for it increases.  After getting railed in the face 3 times by a red in one fight my mistake was made pretty obvious.  It still took me a while to unlearn that habit even after I'd decided to stop fighting face forward, so my advice to any new person is to not develop that habit in the first place.  The solution to fighting with your face forward is to simply straighten out your back.  This lines your body up with your spine.  In addition keeping your center of balance over your center of mass will make footwork and swings cleaner.

Spear Blocking
For years I used to block spears down and simply dodge back with my legs.  This meant that I could get away from most stabs.  My friend Brian (another fellow Grinnellian and part of the realm of Chamonix) used to fight primarily spear.  After missing me repeatedly he decided he'd just keep putting more on the shot until I stopped being able to escape it.  Eventually he was successful in getting it to land by railing me right in the nuts.  To say it was an unpleasant experience is and understatement.  What I learned from this is that you never block a spear up or down.  Blocking down gets you hit in the nuts.  Blocking a spear up increases the chance you'll get railed in the face.  The right way to deal with a spear is always to block it to your left or right, causing it to go past you.

Hand Blocking
Back when I was younger and felt invincible I used to reflexively use my hand to intercept swings.  Initially I even did so without gloves until I discovered that was a terrible idea.  Hand blocking let's you use your natural reflexes to intercept swings.  The problem being that it's not safe for your hands to get repeatedly beat up.  While it may be possible to absorb many blue swings this way, the same can't be said of red weapons.  Most people who one hand block a red learn that that's not a good idea pretty fast because of how much it hurts.  That's not to say that one hand blocking a red isn't possible, it's just much more difficult and requires a person to have a good sense of how body mechanics work to absorb the swing without injury.  Punch blocking red swings will eventually lead to serious injury.

Turns out, gear matters

Gloves
If you're still fighting without gloves... don't.  Seriously.  Hand injuries are probably the most common injury that we get as fighters.  I can't even count the number of fighters whose hands are no longer the same as they were before they started fighting.  Some people have a knuckle that's out of place or a joint that behaves strangely now because of either one good shot to the hand or a number of swings that eventually lead to injury.  Protecting your hands is important even when the weapons are safe.  There was a time back in college when I took the flat of a blade to my knuckle (in part because of punch blocking).  To add insult to injury my knuckle managed to find the part of the weapon that was failing.  A tiny little gap in the foam that allowed my knuckle to get hit by the weapon's core.  I remember being unable to use that hand for 3 days.  I was fortunate to not have any kind of lasting injury as a result of that swing.  If I'd been wearing gloves with proper protection perhaps I would have been able to avoid that particular injury.

Knee pads
While knee pads aren't always necessary it's a good idea to have some for when they are.  It's also important to develop the habit of wearing them BEFORE you get your knees injured.  Once your knees are bad because you haven't been wearing knee pads they'll become even more necessary.  For me knee pads became necessary when we started fighting indoors in the college's gym.  While it's good to develop the reflex to take a knee as soon as the leg is hit you should avoid doing that unless you have knee pads.  Over the years I cannot count how many times I've taking a flying knee only to land on something hard and injure my knee temporarily.  Fighting requires enough focus without also having to check to see where you're going to land if you take a knee.  Get into the habit of wearing knee pads early so that you avoid that particular mistake

Protection from the sun
Most people I know aren't good enough at keeping themselves appropriately covered with sun screen.  After years of fighting I can no longer count the number of times I've gotten sun burned at an event, even at times when I've made an effort to get myself covered in sunscreen (totally got burned at BftR).  What I eventually settled on was wearing a bunch of clothing/garb that inherently protects the areas that I most often burn.  I tend to wear a t-shirt under my tunic so that my core doesn't get burned.  I wear a bandanna to keep my forehead from burning.  That means that for the most part I just need to get sunscreen on my arms, face and neck.

Properly balanced swords
This is probably the thing that most people overlook.  Having a weapon that isn't well weighted is going to apply extra torque/strain to your wrists and elbows.  The weapon doesn't necessarily have to be poorly balanced to cause you injury either; if the weapon is simply too heavy for you to use based on the amount of developed musculature then you are also likely to injure yourself, especially if you don't know how to use proper body mechanics.  Now that I've been fighting for a while I keep around a set of heavy gear that puts extra strain on my body so that I can tune my body mechanics when I get sloppy.  But, that same set of gear can injure me and strain my muscles if I keep fighting with it despite having some pretty well developed musculature related to the swings that I know how to throw.

While there's something to be said (in my opinion) for having heavier gear to help slow down and correct your swings it's also important to balance how much strain you put on your body.  Pushing yourself too hard will only lead to injury.  Pushing yourself after you've been injured can make those injuries permanent rather then temporary.  Another friend from college/chamonix basically permanently injured their wrists as a result of repeatedly aggravating what had initially been a relatively minor break/sprain.  Years of therapy and surgeries later he's starting to get proper use of his arms back but trying to fix the amount of broken in his arms has been both time consuming and expensive.  Better to be out for 3 months to let something heal then to be down for a year and a half because you re-injured something or turned a minor injury into a major one by continuing to fight on it.

Fin.

There's a quote I picked up long enough ago that I no longer remember where it comes from which goes something to the effect of "Learn from other people's mistakes, you won't live long enough to make them all yourself".  There's nothing wrong with learning from experience but the point is that you don't have to have it be YOUR experience.  Learning from the people who have gone before you, or your peers can help you side step some that pain.  Hopefully if you're reading this while you're relatively new you can avoid getting repeatedly hit in the face, getting your hands injured or getting your knees injured.  Better to pick up good habits early so that it takes less time to learn.

Battle For The Ring and updates

No post for last week because I was at battle for the ring without use of technology.  I'll write today's post momentarily.  Just wanted to drop a quick shout out for another blog I stumbled on to.  Go check out http://www.leftycombat.com/ if you've got a chance.

Drills: Arms

Chicken Wings

A pretty straightforward sparring session in which the only legal shot available for both fighters is the arm. Typically this is taught in time with teaching a person proper guard so that they are punished if/when their elbows stick out. Typically I run this as a first blood scenario. First person to snap an arm gets the win and causes both fighters to reset.

Offhand Single Blue

Fighting single blue is a pretty excellent thing to do when you have the opportunity to spar with another person because it forces you to rely on footwork as well as offensive and defensive sword work at the same time in order to win. If you swing and miss it gives the other person an opportunity and you don’t have a second hand worth of stuff to fix your mistake. Doing it with your offhand allows you to train up something that is otherwise derpy. If you’re going to do anything that requires two hands then fighting off hand single blue will improve your off hand. It’s an awful experience that you will likely hate, but this means that you’ll also be able to improve quickly.

Samurai Style

Samurai style is another drill designed to train one handed swordsmanship. The basic premise is that you start with a weapon at your side and for each time it leaves your side you may swing only once. You can block to your hearts content, but in order to strike a second time it must first return to your hip. To train speed/accuracy you do this as another first blood exercise. This can be executed with either your main hand or your off hand. Until you’ve got practice start with your main hand. Since the goal is to train accuracy it’s important that you work with a hand you are coordinated with or start slow until you’ve got the hang of it. When this goes wrong it’s two people repeatedly punching each other in the hands or throwing face shots.

Seated Combat

Similarly stupid like samurai style the goal here is to train speed and reflexes with much less focus on accuracy. You and a sparring partner sit cross legged across from each other. Set yourselves up so that both people can reach their opponents torso. Tap weapons and play by normal rules without moving your feet. First person to a torso shot or two limbs win. Rounds usually only take seconds so you can get a lot of them in quickly. The end goal is simply to increase your hand speed while removing all other variables.

Assgrinder

A melee in which the only legal shot is to a person butt. Theoretically this ought to teach people how to throw wrap shots as the only other way to score this shot is by getting behind someone. Handy for teaching field awareness as well.

Kyrian’s 12

A series of 12 shots to practice I learned from Sir Kyrian. It's likely this has been around for a long while and someone else taught it to him. In any case... there's 6 Swings, 3 stabs, 3 wraps. For the swings try to make sure that each pair of locations (IE, 1 and 2) you strike the same point on both sides of the body. Ideally you do this by using only your wrist; first swing on one side and then flip your wrist over to hit the other side. If you can't do that at first no worries, use your arm as you need to just focus on accuracy. It is more important to train for accuracy and precision then it is to do this fast or with much force. Do it slowly and accurately and then when needed you can speed it up. If you try and start doing it quickly your form will break down so when you need to execute on the movements you’ll have issues because typically the swings won’t go where you want them to.


6 Shots:

3 Stabs:

3 Wraps:

Wrist Strength Drill

Find a single blue and a round protruding object like a doorknob. Brace your elbow with your non-sword arm, to attempt to keep both your arm and elbow from moving. Next, using only your wrist, circle the protruding object in large, slow circles. The most important part is to make a perfect circle. If you find that your circle looks more like an oval or is otherwise lopsided then you need to keep going at a slow pace until those bits and pieces of your wrist muscles are built up. Once you can make a perfect (or close to it) slow circle then you can start to speed it up until the motion becomes relatively quick. Again, keeping a perfect circle using only your wrist is most important. Finally, repeat the process by shrinking the size of your circle until it’s the minimum distance possible around the shape. When I demonstrate this on a field I use a person’s outstretched arm and make circles around their fist.

Drills: Footwork

This will be my first attempt at using google draw for diagrams... so bear with my ineptitude.

Primer

I've always thought that the best way to build a fighter is from the ground up.  If a person isn't standing in the right place it doesn't matter what shots they can throw.  If a person's footwork leaves them in a place where their back is exposed, no amount of passive guard will save them.  So, I start with footwork.  It is my opinion that footwork is meant to accomplish 4 things.

1) Keep your legs from getting hit, by either keeping them out of reach or by keeping them mobile enough that you can dodge with them when they are swung at.  This means that generally speaking you should not have to ever guard your legs.  That's what footwork is for.

2) Footwork should allow you to dictate the angles of your engagement.  This means that you move in such a way that your break your opponents line (and therefore their guard) to allow you ease of access for certain shots like wrap shots.  It also means that you move in such a way that you deny your opponent equivalent strikes that would be advantageous to them by making sure they can't get a good angle on you.

3) Footwork should allow you to dictate the distance at which you fight.  See rock, paper, scissors for more on ranges and where you optimally want to be fighting.  But long story short, if you're a close range fighter footwork is what allows you to stay out of your opponents reach until you choose to close.  If you're a long range fighter footwork is what keeps your opponents away from you while you swing at them.  If you're a mid range fighter footwork is what allows you to maintain range, denying your opponent the ability to either close or escape.

4) Footwork should allow you to always maintain your balance.  This is important both for throwing shots at crazy angles without falling over, and also for absorbing hits; whether those are red swings to your shield, or a shieldsman charging you.  If you have good footwork (and your legs) you should be able to avoid being bowled over.

The basic stance that I teach is front foot lined up with your opponents centerline, back foot at approximately 45 degrees.  Front foot holds about 40% of your weight, back foot holds about 60% of your weight.  Here are the drills I use to teach that stance with the above 4 things in mind.

Reflex Training

[covers point 1]
Reflex training is pretty simple.  I get a person into the right stance and then after I've let them know I'm going to swing aim at their front foot between the knee and the ankle in a steady, evenly timed leg sweep.  I also use this as a chance to teach them about feints, occasionally faking a shot by pumping my arm without swinging.  Each time they dodge successfully, they do so by taking a step backwards.  After they've had a chance to reset into the proper stance the drill continues.  I usually repeat this drill until they dodge the majority of shots and can do so consistently.  The aim is mostly to make sure they dodge, but also to make sure they're using proper body mechanics so that between one dodge and the next their form has not degraded.  Success in this drill is determined by being able to do 5 dodges in a row without having their form get completely mangled.  Generally speaking, once a person's form gets mangled they'll stop being able to dodge in between 1 and 3 steps.

Tempo Training

[covers points 2, 3]
Tempo training is the next step up from reflex training.  It's the same drill, except that I don't give them a long time to reset their stance between one swing and the next.  The goal here is less about speed and more about matching my motion.  I'll take a step forward and take a leg sweep, causing them to have to dodge by taking a step back.  After we've both landed completely, I repeat this step, slowly increasing the speed at which I step so they have a chance to pair their motion to mine.  I find that doing it this way is a much more natural way for some people to learn how to dodge because it's not in a vacuum.  If the person is successful in this their dodge rate should be 100%, success is more dictated by their ability to match my pace.

Body Mechanics Training

[covers point 4]
Often a person will have trouble really understanding how to execute on the dodge.  They'll take too big a step, they'll dodge erratically, they'll dodge without then landing in the proper footwork, etc.  When I notice that they aren't learning anything from reflex training, it's time to take a step backwards and slow it down.  This is where the body mechanics training comes in.  For this drill neither person can be holding weapons.  The student crosses their arms over their chest and takes basic stance.  The teacher then takes both hands and braces them on the students shoulders.  The teacher then shoves the student with enough force to cause them to lose balance.  This should cause the student to have to take one step back.  As the teacher it's important that you don't use too little force, since this will mean that the student has to use their own momentum to step, or too much force, because then they can't land well with one step.  Generally speaking, when I go over this drill as the teacher, I let the student know that they should try to move as little as possible and brace themselves against the push I will be giving.  This push can be performed on all 4 steps that I teach.  If you are giving a person a push from the side, then simply brace both hands on one shoulder and push, causing the student to rotate.  Make sure that as the teacher whenever you perform this push you do so at a right angle relative to your student's center line (0, 90, 180, 270 degrees).

4 Steps Training

[covers point 3]
I teach 4 basic steps that I feel will give my students all the tools they need to start off with.  Since teaching this particular set of 4, I've realized there's an equivalent set of 4 steps at 45 degree angles.  Since I don't usually teach those until much later I don't include them in the basic footwork exercises.  So, onward to the first 4.

1) Step backwards.  This is performed as part of reflex, tempo and body mechanics training.  The idea here is to simulate evading an opponent swinging for your legs.  To execute this step draw the front leg backwards in a straight line, keeping it close to the ground so that it's a fast move.  The goal here is speed rather then distance.  As your front leg comes back, put your weight onto the ball (not the heel) of your back foot.  This should allow it to rotate so that when you come to a rest your stance has flipped.  If you started right foot forward, then you'll have right foot back at 45 degrees and left foot forward point directly at your opponent.

Start:

End:

2) Step forwards.  This is performed as part of tempo and body mechanics training.  The idea here is to simulate advancing on an opponent.  Same mechanics as stepping backwards just in reverse.

3) Pivot.  This is performed on it's own but can be done using body mechanics training.  The idea here is to simulate reacting to a person closing on your side.  Instead of drawing your foot back in a straight line, this goes in an arc.  Assuming your left foot is your front foot and your right foot is your back foot the idea is to spin on your front foot so that you go from 0 degrees to 90 degrees in the direction that you had your back foot.  When the pivot is completed your front foot should be pointed to the right.  The pivot can be done in both directions, so if you flip your feet you can still execute a pivot, you'll just end up facing left relative to where you started rather then to the right.

Start:

End:

4) Evade.  This is performed on it's own because it's essentially two steps that need to be executed before it's complete.  The evade happens when the foot that is forward matches the side that your opponent comes in at you from.  For instance, if your right foot is forward, then this is done when an opponent engages you from the right side.  First pivot so that your back is facing your new opponent.  This will give your legs time to get away from the perceived leg shot by rotating away from, and out of the opponents swing.  Next, spin.  After the initial leg swing as missed rotate until your front foot is facing your new opponent.  This is a tool in the toolbox.  It is the worst step you can take.  If you have time to react it's better to simply switch your feet and pivot.  But it's better to know then to not know.

Start:

First Step:

Last Step:

With A Weapon

Sweep

All of the above drills can be done with the student having a weapon in hand.  As the student steps they simply sweep the weapon in front of their legs in a slow arc.  The sword arm and arc always follows the students footsteps.  So if they're stepping in with their right foot and their sword arm is their right arm, then their leg sweep should go be a U shape which goes from right to left.  In the same setup if they're stepping backwards you throw the same leg sweep, but this time from left to right.  This isn't really about using the sword to swing.  It's more about memorizing the leg sweep.  If they move their feet to the right place then the leg sweep will land.  If they are out of range and have to bend over or reach with their arms to get it to connect then the student is doing it wrong and needs to adjust their footwork appropriately.

Snap

The other iteration that you can do is a quick snap to the opponents shoulder.  From whichever hand is the sword arm (let's do the right for an example) take a straight shot directly across into your opponents shoulder (in this case their right shoulder).  This particular maneuver is usually taught as part of the reflex or tempo training, but you could do it with any of the above drills.

Once both of these two sword techniques are learned in combination with footwork you can theoretically, close and aggress or retreat and snipe without knowing how to do anything other then stand in the right place.

Happy New Years

Happy 2016 everyone.  New years threw me off my game so I missed my updates.  So I'm going to make up for that with a veritable deluge of information including the first bits of Addendum 0: Drills.  To that end I'm creating a new data tag "drills" for anything that you can practice yourself in the future.  Anyways.  Short post as an update.  Onward.  Also, for new years, I'm going to start trying to add diagrams.  It may mean fewer posts or less text, but hopefully it makes things easier to read.