It appears to take about one year for most people in my kenjutsu style to learn the basic sword forms, but we are also typically only training twice a week for two hours at a shot. More frequent training and longer classes would increase that rate, as would a lifestyle in which one knows that this is a life-and-death skill instead of a hobby skill. That said, I can also say that I stop being able to learn anything halfway through the second three-hour session in a day and this appears to be true for most of my classmates as well, so I wouldn't recommend more than 6 hours of active classes in a given day.
and you'd want to change up the learning if you went a full 6 hour day - a couple of hours on form (one on one or at the pell), a couple on sparring, a couple at the pell for just practice. A good solid 20 -30 minute break and snack between each 2 hour session.
Part of the issue with this kind of training is how incredibly tiring it is to both do all that physical work *and* learn all that new stuff at once. Food (bread, meat - nothing fancy - LOTS of water) would be be vital to this kind of training.
Actually, our six hour seminar days would be soooo much better for me if they were three two hour sessions instead of two three hour sessions. That second break can make all the difference.
I always did better in sword sessions when we broke at 2 hours than at 3 - it's a stamina thing - and maybe you want to increase that over time to improve stamina - but training is always harder than fighting in my experience because you're not having to learn new things when fighting.
sure thing - and while 5 years would make them masters, they could certainly fight in less time - 6 mos to a year for real-steal, life-or-death (with life preferred :>) would be my guess based on past experience.
I haven't determined that yet exactly, but I want to be prepared. Let's assume they'll be fighting people who have equal to more experience than they do, although just how much more I won't be certain of until I start writing exact scenarios.
I elaborated on the idea in another post below. Basically, people would be working together initially, but since it's a competition with a prize at the end that can either be shared or not depending on what people decide, I imagine by the end there'll be some backstabbing. I imagine most people would want to be in small groups to stand a chance against others in other groups. I'm still trying to figure out the total number of people and how many would be in a group.
I trained with ARMA back when I was a teen. That meant unarmed, daggers, swords, axes, spears, hillebards, two-handers, rapiers, one-handers and shields, one-handers and bucklers... Training was 2 hours, 3 times a week.
From knowing nothing to going unarmed against beginners with swords and shields and kicking their asses in 1,6 flat seconds took about a year. That grew easy, quickly, and I suppose by then I wouldn't have embarrassed myself in a fight, even if I might not have won. From knowing nothing to facing off the instructors and winning one fight in twenty, if I was lucky... Perhaps three years. I could hold my own decently by then against people who'd practiced for a few years longer than I had, even if I was by no means a master.
And I never felt a master at all, I always felt there was more to learn, even if I felt pretty good about things when I was teaching the beginners not to underestimate me. ("I can't hit her! She's so small!" You're right. You can't. Because while you're busy announcing your strikes to the world, that'
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Thank you for the information. Very helpful My initial ideas aren't leaning to anything historically accurate--the scenario involves a small group of people competing for something. The scenario doesn't have to be life or death if everyone cooprates, but if the prize is to be shared, there will always be that one or two people who want to disable the competition. Many will be people who started off fresh, but a few will have more experience. That being said, I was also planning on mixing up weapon types, but wanted to figure out everything one step at a time.
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Part of the issue with this kind of training is how incredibly tiring it is to both do all that physical work *and* learn all that new stuff at once. Food (bread, meat - nothing fancy - LOTS of water) would be be vital to this kind of training.
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Actually, our six hour seminar days would be soooo much better for me if they were three two hour sessions instead of two three hour sessions. That second break can make all the difference.
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From knowing nothing to going unarmed against beginners with swords and shields and kicking their asses in 1,6 flat seconds took about a year. That grew easy, quickly, and I suppose by then I wouldn't have embarrassed myself in a fight, even if I might not have won. From knowing nothing to facing off the instructors and winning one fight in twenty, if I was lucky... Perhaps three years. I could hold my own decently by then against people who'd practiced for a few years longer than I had, even if I was by no means a master.
And I never felt a master at all, I always felt there was more to learn, even if I felt pretty good about things when I was teaching the beginners not to underestimate me. ("I can't hit her! She's so small!" You're right. You can't. Because while you're busy announcing your strikes to the world, that' ( ... )
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My initial ideas aren't leaning to anything historically accurate--the scenario involves a small group of people competing for something. The scenario doesn't have to be life or death if everyone cooprates, but if the prize is to be shared, there will always be that one or two people who want to disable the competition. Many will be people who started off fresh, but a few will have more experience. That being said, I was also planning on mixing up weapon types, but wanted to figure out everything one step at a time.
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