Slow is fast, fast is slow
The not quite yet 'Sir' Geoffrey gets a lesson in sword practise, and doesn't like it.
“Slow is fast, and fast is slow,” the old man said, holding up his sword to signal a halt in training.
Geoffrey paused. He hated that saying. Hearing it meant that he was about to get lectured, or gifted extra work.
For the last half hour, he’d been swinging his sword in an angled overhead slashing counter-attack, trying to master the form his master had taught him. The practice had been gruelling and boring.
It was a bright and sunny day, with a strong breeze washing over the training field, making the heat barely tolerable. The clang and shout of combat was all around, as trained warriors taught less trained aspiring warriors the art of sword and spear fighting. Nearby, a Squire received a blow to the head from a wooden training sword and collapsed to the ground, to the laughter of his nearby colleagues. A knight stood overtop of him, wooden sword in hand, his posture radiating disapproval.
The inflicting knight shouted at the laughing squires to remove their fallen brother, and they quickly leapt to action. He then pointed at the next trainee, whose shoulders slumped in cynical expectation as he picked up his sword and shield and walked into the ring to take the fallen squire’s place. [1]
[1] A common belief amongst some teachers of the blade, is that the best way to teach students how to dodge or parry is by teaching them to fear the blade. This is, of course, accomplished through hitting them with said blade.
“Your enthusiasm is excellent. Heart is important when holding the blade in battle - but you must put down whatever you are holding in your mind to create the proper motion in your body. You are too busy with your thoughts, and too fast with your body. You will learn the motion wrong.” Sir Tralefor told his squire with a patience developed from having watched many a hotblooded young warrior flail away at the practice sword. “You must slow down, and do it properly each time.”
“You told me I need to practise five hundred cuts today. I haven’t even completed the first half. I’m already tired, and I have other duties I need to complete today.” Geoffrey said, trying not to sound like he was whining.[2]
[2] He very much sounded like he was whining.
Geoffrey had, in fact, been distracted by his thoughts.
Mostly by the thought that his arms hurt.
As a farmer’s son, he was neither unfamiliar nor particularly unhappy with early mornings. He was used to heavy labour at first light. It was this willingness to rise early and work hard at practice that caught Tralefor’s attention, and earned Geoffrey a spot to train with the old weaponmaster.
But Tralefor was a firm believer of consistent and repetitive practice of the basics as a way of greeting the sun. It had been several days of this gruelling training and Geoffrey had been finding his body failing to recover fast enough to keep up with the training regime.
“I told you to execute five hundred proper cuts today. Not five hundred sloppy cuts. Not five hundred garbage cuts that will train the forms wrong, and get you killed when you try them on the battlefield. You have, at best, done one hundred of your five for the day.” Sir Tralefor said with a grin that wasn’t malicious, but certainly flirted with the vibe.
Geoffrey groaned. He hadn’t known that Tralefor had been keeping a count of his own. And that his count considered less than half of Geoffrey’s practice cuts as correct.
“Tears on the training field lead to laughter on the battlefield.” Sir Tralefor said with a grin that would make a fox proud. “Again. But slower. Your mind is the sword, and the sword is your mind.” [3]
[3] This might seem like nonsense, and in some sense, it is. And in another sense, there is no spoon.
So Geoffrey swung again, and again, and again - Tralefor stopped him occasionally to make corrections to his form.
“Turn the hips like this.”
“Angle the sword down like this, so their blade slides off yours. You do not need or want to fight their strength.”
“Breathe out on the down stroke.”
And on… and on… and on…
As the morning sun passed into the afternoon, the day grew too hot to be training. and other squires and soldiers completed their practice and left. Slowly the training grounds emptied out.
Until only Tralefor and Geoffrey remained.
Geoffrey’s arms felt like decomposing river reeds. His body was on the verge of revolt, and his irritation at his teacher grew with every moment he remained trapped here.
“Master, why do you force me to train like this every day? All the other squires have left. I’ve easily done three times as much work as any of them. I’m exhausted.” He said, his sword going limp in his hands.
Tralefor lowered his own blade. He had been keeping pace with Geoffrey the whole time. The old man’s endurance was incredible, often outworking men half his age. Even outworking Geoffrey, who was closer to a third of Tralefor's age.
“Because slow is fast…”
“And fast is slow, yes. I know. You’ve told me a hundred times,” Geoffrey said, impetuously.
“And yet you’ve heard me not once,” Tralefor’s tone landed with a harsh rebuke. Geoffrey winced.
“All those squires who left trained fast. They did their duty, the minimum, and left. When their time comes on the battlefield, their fast training will lead to slow fighting. And they will die,” Sir Tralefor said sternly.
“Your enemy has decades, and in some cases, hundreds of years more training than you. That means they are more skilled, physically stronger and faster. And but for the rarest exceptions, smarter.”
“Which means if you are to survive, you need to train ten to a hundred times harder than they do. A human swordsman, on a one to one basis, is no equal to their Sidhe counterpart,” Sir Tralefor went on, his tone dark. Tralefor was a rarity amongst the warriors and knights of Rundell. He had grey hair.[4]
[4] Plenty of nobles and lords had grey hair, but most of them had wisely retired from active battlefield duty at the earliest possible opportunity. Sir Tralefor still fought the Sidhe when duty called, and continued to live.
Geoffrey looked at his feet, as he took the rebuke. He knew he was lucky to train with Sir Tralefor, though he hadn’t known what that luck would cost him.
“Your commanders do not care, because there are ten to a hundred times more of you than there are of the Sidhe. Through attrition they can weaken their ranks, because we breed like rabbits compared to them. Ten dead humans is worth the exchange of one Sidhe life,” Sir Tralefor said.[5]
[5] Not universally true. Any decent commander would never trade ten of his knights or wizards for a single Sidhe - but ten peasant conscripts? Happily and with champagne. The actual peasant to Sidhe soldier exchange ratios were typically much higher than ten to one.
“Do you wish to be one body in ten, traded for a single Sidhe warrior?” Sir Tralefor asked, his voice switching to a gentler but still patriarchal tone. “If you wish to be a body, then leave. Your training for the day is done.”
Geoffrey shook his head. He did not want to die. Only a foolish zealot *wanted* to die for their cause. It was much wiser to make the *other person* die for their cause.
“Then 500 cuts. Done properly. And do them slowly,” Sir Tralefor said, lifting his sword again.
Geoffrey lifted his sword, sweat pouring down his face, and swung.
And swung slower.
Editorial Note;
I’m a bit behind on my story posting as we’ve just hit launch on the flyingcanoevolant.ca - which to my non-Edmontonian readers won’t mean much to you. I’ve been a ‘Senior Lantern Technician’ with Lightcraft Designs on and off for the last 12 years, so this festival is a pretty special event each year, and it’s always an odd and interesting adventure to get to this point.
If you live in Edmonton and haven’t gone this year, the lantern artwork is going to be really special and worth the trip. The lights in mill creek ravine shut down at 10pm so don’t procrastinate.
For my non-Edmontonian readers, you can check out this shared google album of the photos I took of last year’s installations FCV 2023 Art Lantern Photos. I should have a new set of photos for this year either next week or the following. You can also see this video of the workshop and a couple of our projects pre-send in this instagram video I made earlier this week.
But the Flying Canoe will be coming to an end soon, and then it’s back to book writing and story telling. Huzzah!
Oh yea, I’m working on a book. Surprise surprise!?
I’ll have more to say about that… at some point.
Cheers,
Robin George
This is SO true! Don't have any sword fighting training, but anything that requires consistently correct execution is the same. You have to repeat it -- correctly -- until it's in your muscles and in your brain.