Lesson 1

"To begin," said the trainer, "we will look at the basics of swords. There is a lot of variety in size and shape - and, correspondingly, in how they are used - but all swords have at least a few things in common. The first is that they are combat weapons. A knife or hand-axe can be used as a tool; a spear or bow can be used to hunt; but a sword is designed only for battle."

Holding up the sword, he continued: "This particular type of sword is very light, and offers some reach. Most attacks will be made with the tip; the rest will be done by slicing with the blade. You will almost never actually swing the blade - the sword has enough edge to do it, but it is too light to make chopping attacks efficient. It is meant to be used with one hand, but the second hand can grip the pommel. More often, the free hand will support the wrist of the sword hand, resting against the top or inside of the wrist, and changing position - including releasing the wrist entirely - as necessary."

When the student(s) nodded, he continued: "Using this blade depends on relaxation and flexibility, not strength. The movements are circular, from the tip of the blade to the bottoms of your feet, and anyone fighting with a gim should flow, slipping past their opponents attacks and defenses, never offering a solid target. If there are no questions, we will look at the specifics of stances and begin a movement drill next."

Lesson 2

"We will begin with three stances," the Trainer continued. "If you have taken unarmed combat, you will probably recognize these."

Settling into a ready position, he said: "This is the middle stance. The feet are about shoulder width apart, toes pointing off at a forty-five degree angle from the opponent. The knees are bent, and your weight should be evenly distributed so that you can move in any direction. You should be oriented so that if you stick your arms straight out to either side, they will also be pointing forty-five degrees off from your opponent." He waited, watching as his student(s) imitated the position.

"Good. Now, for the forward position. Bring your weight forward onto your lead leg. Your rear leg should straighten, but not lock. The front leg should hold about eight parts in ten of your weight - and if you are doing it correctly, it should not strain your knee. Your torso should remain vertical, not leaning forward." He eased back into the middle stance, studying the stances of his student(s). "There are several names for this stance, but for simplicity we will refer to it as the lunge."

"The third stance is generally referred to as the cat stance," he continued. "From the middle stance, you shift your weight onto the rear leg, and pull the front leg back until your front foot is just in front of your rear foot. In this stance, the lead foot should have only a little of your weight on it - about one part in eight. Once you have that, slide your foot back to where it was, and resume a middle stance."

Nodding thoughtfully, the Trainer drew his sword. "Holding the sword is not as simple as it sounds," he said. "The actual grip is done with the pinkie finger, and to a lesser extent with the next two fingers. The pointer finger and the thumb should serve to guide the weapon, not to hold it." He surveyed his student(s), nodded. "Good. Now, the elbow of your sword arm should be about on a level with the bottom of your rib cage. The blade should be about halfway between vertical and horizontal; then let your wrist roll over slightly, so that it points slightly to the inside - so if you are holding it right handed, it should point slightly off to your left. Do you have that?"

Lesson 3

The trainer nodded, studying the student's posture thoughtfully. "That will do for now," he said. "It will become more natural to you with practice. For the next part, I want you to work on keeping your movements smooth and relaxed. We will begin slowly, and you will find that as you become used to this your speed will increase."

Moving around in front of his student, he set himself facing her, touched her blade with the side of his own. "This drill is simple. You can use this in combat, but for now it will serve to introduce you to the quality of movement that belongs to this blade. I will begin by pushing the point of my blade towards you. You will use your blade to guide mine - gently! - off to your right." [OOC: assuming that the student is using a right-handed grip.]

"Good," he said, as his point slid to the side. "Now you will bring your blade back in to the center, and thrust - slowly - towards my chest. I will guide your blade off to the side, like so..." He let his hand drift through the loose, circling deflection. "Then I will thrust again, and we are back where we began. We will work with just arms and wrists at first."

They continued the exercise until the movements became comfortable; then the trainer stepped back. "Now," he said, "the exercise is the same, but we will add the stances. When you thrust, I want you to move into the lunge; and when I thrust at you, you shift back into Cat stance as you deflect my blade."

Lesson 4

"Good," said the trainer, watching as she flowed through the movements. Stepping back, he motioned for her to stand. "Practice until you can do that smoothly with the sword in either hand. For now, we will discuss attack and defense with this sort of weapon."

Motioning for the student to follow, he walked over to the area reserved for cutting practice, stopping in front of an upright stand that held several pieces of bamboo bundled vertically together and wrapped in burlap. It was roughly the height and width of a man.

"There are essentially three kinds of attacks," said the trainer, "and this sword uses two of them. First - and primary - you can stab with the point." He demonstrated. "Like everything else, stabbing actually involves a circling motion, though often it is so small as to be invisible. For beginners, the most difficult part is often learning to guide the tip to where they want it; there is no cure for this except practice. The second most difficult part is learning to attack with the entire body, not just the arm - that is what the exercises are meant to help."

Shifting his stance slightly, the trainer thrust so that his tip went just past the side of the target. "The second way to attack is to slice - essentially, you press your edge against the target, and push or pull to slide it along." Pressing his blade into the target, the trainer stepped back, pulling the weapon with him. Burlap parted beneath its edge, and it sliced into the wood beneath as well. As it came loose, he completed the circle to bring it back into a guard position. "You can slice if you miss with a thrust; you can also slice as an attack." He let his hand drift out again, in a wide horizontal circle. The blade was angled back, following his hand, so that the edge dragged along the burlap. "Like so," he said.

"The third kind of attack is a chop," he said. "We do not use this, and here is why." Stepping up, he swung the blade at the side of the target. It connected at full extension and bounced back. "The gim is made to cut with a slicing motion; it is not heavy enough to chop through things." He motioned to the side of the target, where the burlap had been pushed into a dent in the bamboo beneath. "This is not to say that it will not do damage if you swing it at something, only that it will do more damage if you angle the blade to slice. Also, chopping breaks the circles that we use to tie our movements together; it throws your rhythm off."

Cleaning his blade with a scrap of cloth, he sheathed it again. "Now you," he said. "Try each of the things I have shown you. Focus on stabbing and slicing, but try chopping once. I want you to feel the difference in your wrist."

Lesson 5

"Defense with the gim is seldom done by blocking directly," the Trainer began. "The blade is simply not heavy enough. Instead, you will guide attacks off to the side, forcing your opponent to provide the energy to stop his blade. As with everything else, this should be done with a circling motion, relaxed and flowing. You have seen the basics of this in the movement drills we practiced.

"However," he continued, "deflection alone is not always enough, especially while you are still learning, and if your opponent’s weapon is heavier than yours. We will therefore begin by learning to deflect attacks to one side while stepping in the other direction. Stepping patterns first," he decided.

"For basic stepping, you will never cross your feet. This is true for advancing, retreating, and sidestepping. So, if you are standing with your right side forward, you will advance by stepping forward with the right foot, then recovering the distance with the left foot. To step to the right, you would move the right foot out to the side, then bring the left foot across to recover. You see?"

When the students nodded, the Trainer smiled. "Good. What we will do now is break up into pairs. Half of you will attack - just bring your sword up, and down towards the top of your partner’s head. Half speed, to begin with. Those of you on defense, I want you to practice bringing the point of your blade up, then moving your wrist off to one side or the other to deflect the attack. Once you are comfortable with that, I want you to practice deflecting the blade in one direction while you side-step in the other."

Lesson 6

"For our final lesson," the Trainer began, "We will look at some of the stepping patterns that work with the gim. Before that, I want to make a final comment on defense.

"The best way to avoid being injured," he said, "is not to be there when your opponent’s attack lands. For this reason, especially in your early training, your default reaction to anything your opponent does should be a retreat. If you are not sure what your opponent is doing, get out of the way. Then, when he does something you know how to deflect, you deflect it and move in for the attack."

He paused, surveying the class. "Don’t be afraid to cover a lot of ground; the gim is a very mobile weapon. Use your side-steps to circle, so that you are coming at your opponent from a new direction - even during attacks and retreats. You can use the forward stance - the lunge - to come further forward without going off balance, and you can move into the cat stance to pull yourself further back during a retreat." He hesitated, then added, "Be wary of relying on that too much; once you are in a cat stance it is difficult to retreat further. It is, however, a good position to launch yourself forward from.

"For today, I want you to spar with each other. Focus on movement, and try to learn the range at which you can reach someone."

OOC: You can simply write a short scene describing the spar, rather than actually pairing off with someone. Of course, if you do want to find a partner and spar, that’s fine too.