HEMA Journeyman Porgrams

[Jeremiah Smith]

So I just wanted to start a topic to discuss This
I Know the Louisiana folks are getting something along these lines set up, and I am sure other clubs would love to do something like this. I for one am really excited for this, and would love to participate as a Journeyman myself, I feel like it would go a long way to foster camaraderie and develop good fencers.

So I am interested, how do we get this ball rolling. For the people already doing this (or just beginning to do this) what are your ideas for an outline of how it should work. what sort of process do you think this would be?

also for people interested in participating as "journeyman" What would you like other clubs to offer if you were to set up a visit with them.

What about distance learning via skype or other new millennium methods of scholarship?

[Jess Rozek]

I guess I'll throw myself out there...

What exactly does that mean? Journeymen like apprentices or something or like travelling scholars?


Or maybe like that time traveling guy in the show Journeyman Cuz that would be awesome.

[JohnPatterson]

Richard and I are planning some road trips this summer to meet folks. The Phoenix Society has an open door policy to anyone who will be in town.

[Jason Taylor]

I think this is a great idea, and I was really excited when I heard the NOLA guys mentioning it. I think the journeyman should be like a travelling scholar, training at other clubs on visits from a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on schedule and the other clubs' time and interest. I think there should be a pre-interview, maybe by phhone or skype, or maybe just on day 1, so that the host club kind of knows what the student can do and what his or her terminology is and so forth. Then the student should just drop into the school's training schedule, but with the lesson plans designed to show off the best of the club's theory, technique, and or drills and training regimens, and tailored to what the local club instructor(s) think(s) that the student can absorb/can use. There should be plenty of time for freeplay, but it shouldn't dominate.

I think there was a journeyman book mentioned--I think that's a great idea, along with Christian Trosclair's online version (I think he might have more to say about that). Between the two, you have a personal memento with training notes that you take with you, and an online backup version, if I understand it right, and anyone can go and see where one of the participating members of the journeyman program have trained.

Of course, I think this is all best fostered by the kind of policies about visitors from other schools that encourages cross training: a generally open-door policy for the sharing of ideas. I can say right now that if anyone wants to visit Kron, they are more than welcome, and will be treated as essentially a visiting dignitary whom we can both help to train and learn from.

Good stuff. I want to be involved in whatever way I can.

Jason

[Jeremiah Smith]

Yes exactly what Jason Said. all of it

[Jean Chandler]

This is something we have been working on for about a year now. I am going to write a formal article about the idea we've been developing with my buddy Payson Muller in York, so I don't want to get too far into details right now before we've got it all strait, but here is a little summary.

We have come to believe, as a result of research, that many fencers were also members of the craft Guilds. The craft Guilds used this system wherein, while learning a trade, you go through the steps of apprentice, journeyman, and finally master. This tradition actually continued in much of continental Europe right up to this very day in certain industries. For example, stone-masons and carpenters in German-speaking Europe (esp. Germany and Switzerland) and in France, do the 'journeyman years' as part of their Guild training.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years

This has been recognized as having a major benefit for skilled labor in the economies of these places, to the point that England is now looking into reviving the practice as well

http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/Detail.as ... wsAreaID=2

With regard to HEMA, we believe even a limited implementation of the old practice will have great benefits. Travelling to another club and training with other people will help with the cross-pollonization which has clearly been so beneficial to our process of learning from these old books. We also think it is a useful compliment to the growing tournament scene since it will help foster humility and friendly sense of fraternity and brotherhood between groups.

Real journeymen go on the road for a fixed period of time, usually 1-3 years, during which they have to stay away from home (usually more than 50km) and have to follow various other rules like not using public transportation, and working for their lodging and so on. We aren't all quite ready to jump into it that hard-core yet but we do believe ultimately, in the long run, this could be something cool for young people to do in the HEMA wold as well at some point.

Right now we are adopting a few of the traditions of the real journeymen, who in turn follow the old medieval traditions to a large extent. Each journeyman should have a wanderbuch, which should be stamped by the school visiting, and the "Master" (or in our case, just an instructor) of the club should write in this book before the journeyman leaves, evaluating his visit and giving advice on his training. The journeyman is not supposed to read the book until he is at least 50 miles away from the school he stayed with. The journeyman himself will also take notes in the wanderbuch.

Visits should include training in the local style, and the young journeyman should also, I think train the people he or she is visiting with in techniques he or she has learned back home or in other travels.

Journeymen should not be apprentices, they should be experienced fencers, if not necessarily Masters in their own right (do we have any of those? Personally I don't think so). Each club is putting it's reputation on the line by the person they choose to send. Journeymen should follow a code of good behavior. The club being visited should provide room and board. The network of journeymen visits should be based on personal relationships between club members, on the basis of trust and respect between the clubs. The hosting club is also putting their reputation on the line that they will be a good host. I think each club should make sure they have a budget to handle the visitor and make sure that they have enough time to do a proper visit. I think our club is going to offer 3 slots per year, one fall, one spring, and one winter. Nobody should really come here in the Summer

Christians software will act as a central meeting place for this system, which we hope will continue to grow and expand. We have contacts with the real journeymen and compagnons from France and Germany, and will be gradually introducing more of the ancient practices into this system as we begin to flesh it out.

So this is the general idea anyway, at least so far.

Jean

[Jeremiah Smith]

Thanks for the input Jean,

is it to early to ask how long you feel a proper stay would be?


I am certainly interested in getting something set up like this for our club although there would be logistics to work out.

[Jean Chandler]

I don't think there should be a hard and fast rule, we just had a visit from Simon Torrel of GHFS in Sweden, which went over a long weekend, but he had also spent a week with Schwert-am-Schwert in Houston before that. I think it depends on the availability of your people, how long it would take you to teach what you want to teach, and if necessary show your guest around a little. For us a long weekend was sufficient in this case. Ideally I might stretch it out to a week but I'd have to do a lot more work coordinating with the other guys in my club to make sure we could structure several good training days with material that would have benefited a journeyman.

At this stage, I think it's just something you should negotiate with the club who is sending the journeyman. If there are many clubs nearby in the same area, they may want to make a series of short visits; if you are the only club for many miles around and they are coming from a long way off, you might need to plan out a longer visit to make the trip worth-while.


J

[Jess Rozek]

Ah okay. That makes more sense.

I feel like a lot of us do this already, just not at the frequency you guys are suggesting. Also, something to keep in mind, as a younger generation starts coming up in the ranks, many of us will be training with say one group at home, one group in college, and possibly a third group if they decide to move away from home and from their college town. A lot of you guys are older and have roots where you are now and probably won't be leaving the area any time soon, but people my age tend to up and move a lot, so that cross-pollination is probably going to happen one way or another.

That being said, I love open door policies. Makes it fun to drop in on Jeremy S.'s group (or any other area group) on short notice. It's absolutely fascinating to see the different training styles or each group and what terminology/drills/activities they use to make their students better. But then, I'm an anthropologist - people are fun.

[Jean Chandler]

What we are really trying to do is set up a somewhat more formal system, based as much as possible on the historical prescedent, for younger people who are learning HEMA and may have more ability to move around. For example, University students taking a gap year. Some may even be able to get college credit for this kind of training.

I think actually spending a few days or a few weeks with another group far away is an excellent way to learn fencing, and also to grow as a person. Going on the road like this for a year would I think undoubtedly be a life-changing growth experience.

J