PRACTICAL PELLING
or
How to practice when everyone else is out of town
In pursuit of excellence in combat, we practice with, on, and occasionally through each other, acquiring bruises and some skill along the way. Yet from time to time there will be no one to practice with; too late in the day, too early, everyone is on vacation, etc. If you just can't face the 29th run of Conan on the tube, and need to burn a few calories, what are you going to do?
You could try shadow-boxing with yourself, or you could mug an innocent tree with your rattan sword, or you could ignore the whole question and take a nap. Or try my suggestion and build a pell to beat on.
A pell is a target that to a greater or lesser degree simulates a human being. Pells have been used through history, in various forms to aid in the training of warriors. They have been constructed of wood, straw, leather, metal and in many different shapes and sizes. The Japanese, for instance, have a method of practicing the varied cuts of the sword, called Tameshigiri. This involves cutting through large stacks of bamboo or bundles of wet straw bound tightly together. In medieval Japan executed criminals were sometimes used to test the blades and the cutting ability of the samurai who used them.
For SCA purposes rattan will only bounce off bamboo and will not cut through wet hay. Nor is beating on a tree particularly helpful, as this can damage the tree and break your sword. What then is the solution? A hanging pell, made of some resilient material that can absorb mass amounts of punishment for years without complaint or damage to your weapon.
I first tried stuffing some old clothes with rags, stitching them together, and using the resulting scarecrow for practice. After only a few blows the folly of this became plain. Next was the standby of boxers, the heavy bag. This, besides being expensive, was subject to the same stresses as the scarecrow. Looking around the back yard, I stumbled (literally) over the perfect solution- a tire.
My first successful pell was a tire from the front of a tractor, a 20" x 10" tire. I hung this tire from an A-frame, a device used to pull motors from cars, which resembles a very large swing set. This pell was an excellent learning device, as it would let me stand still and practice all those neat combinations of blows upon it, without being so rude as to hit me on the head in the middle of an exchange. This points up the first major flaw of a pell: it will almost never hit back at you.
For those who wish to build this simple pell, I give these instructions:
1. Acquire a large used automobile tire. You don't need tread, just a large rubber circle. Keep one of your own tires when you have them changed or pay a service station a dollar or so for an old one.
2. Get some cord or rope to hang the tire with. The first pell I made used 100 pound test nylon fishing line and lasted one month. The second time I used 1/4 inch twisted polyester rope and it lasted a year. You can buy polyester rope at your local hardware or discount store pre-cut in legnths of 50 to 100 feet for about three dollars.
3. Tie one end of the rope to the tire, pass the other end over a handy rafter, cross-beam or tree limb, hoist the tire into the air until it is torso height on you and tie in place.
This is the most basic form of free swinging pell. You can spend hours hitting it with weapons, developing the reflexes and muscle memory necessary to fighting. You can poke it with spears, till you have learned the art of hitting hard to the body and soft to the face.
The second major flaw to a pell is its basic immobility. You may be a human tornado with your weapons, but you will be a static fighter. I found myself fighting in tourneys as I did in practice, anchoring myself to the ground, becoming a rock. This is fine if you are (1) invincible and (2) all your opponents do you the courtesy of attacking from the front. This is (1) impossible and (2) highly unlikely. To restore movement to my fighting practice, I hit upon a simple expedient- hang the tire from a higher branch. By running the the rope over a branch 20 feet off the ground, I was able to give a longer pendulum arc to the pell. Now when attacked the pell would retreat. I could pursue it to the limit of my reach, striking blows as I advanced. On the return swing I practiced retreating and hitting. I learned to back up even faster after being hit on the nose by the pell when I missed a block with my shield.
This forward and back motion is good practice for the give and take of spear versus spear fighting. And 15 to 20 minutes of this constitutes vigorous aerobic exercise, I promise you. You can start the pell swinging in a large circle and chase it from the inside or outside, or you can let it chase you from the inside or outside.
The next step is to hang another pell 15 to 20 feet from the first and practice turning from one to another. Again, not as good as real combat but better than no practice at all.
The latest refinement I have tried is a pell made to resemble a person. To the basic tire, you add a smaller trailer tire above for a head. Arms and legs are made from pieces of those destroyed tires found along any highway. Regardless of the type of pell you construct, you get the most benefit from training with it if you wear your armor while practicing.
When I first began fighting with a spear, I spent long hours at the pell, trying to master the weapon. I learned by heart all the basics, then went on to develop what I thought were some really remarkable moves that would assure my victory on the fighting field.
Unfortunately, when I tried my neat new overhead spinning reverse, I lost my weapon. Very embarassing. I realized that my moves, learned in tennis shoes and jeans, could not work in helmet,, gauntlets, and armor. The final lesson of the pell is this, that you must train as you expect to fight.
The tenth day of the tenth month, the hour of the tiger, in the year of the dragon, 63rd Showa. Kusunoki Shinobu Niten no kami no Minowara