Amtgard training drills

Things to do with one person

• Practice timing and accuracy. Hang a tennis ball with a rope strung through it. Practice striking the ball without missing and without hitting the rope. When you get better, swing the rope and repeat the exercise while the ball is in motion. Imagine Rocky at the punching bag.
• Practice accuracy in shot combos. Take a tree, light pole, piece of wood stuck in the ground and make two marks on it (use easy to remove chalk or tape if you're doing this on property you don't own). Practice doing a combo to hit both marks precisely.
• Practice straight Accuracy. Take several old pieces of 3/4" PVC or large bamboo of varying heights. Stick them into the ground (or use some sort of stand to stick them in) and balance tennis balls on top of them. Try to knock the balls off without striking the poles.
• Practice your throwing skills. If you're playing a spellcaster or class that allows throwing weapons, take a small waste basket, place it twenty feet away from you and try to throw your spellballs or shuriken into the basket. It works better if you have two baskets since you can use one basket to gather projectiles and place the other as the target. Carry back the basket holding the projectiles and start throwing. As you get better you'll find you just have to take the now-empty basket and replace the now-full target basket, walk back and keep throwing.
• Practice your verbal skills. From taking some samples, I figure it's about 4-5 seconds from the time you start targeting a warrior until they're able to close a 20 ft gap and be able engage you in melee. You can practice trying trying to get off whatever spells are appropriate for your chosen class; Hold Person, Sleep, Heat Weapon and Shove for Wizards; Lost, Curse Weapon, Sleep and Stun for Healers; Heat Weapon, Warp Wood, Call Lightning and Shatter for Druids; and Charm, Legend and Lore for Bards. Use a stop watch and try to say the spell in 5 seconds. Make sure you ennunciate the spell's words and aren't just spewing out wierd vowel sounds ;-) As you improve your casting time, reduce the goal. . . try to do it in 4 seconds. . . then try 3.5 seconds. If you can get a spell off in 2.5 seconds, you should be able to win most speed casting contests (and, more importantly, increase your chances of survival on the field). A second benefit of this method is you get a pretty good idea of how far 20 feet is very quickly.

Things to do with other people

• Two Fold - This requires three fighters. Two fighters become an attacker team and try to kill the single fighter (aka "the target"). If the single fighter beats the pair you restart and try again. If the fighter slays one of the pair, the surviving attacker becomes the target. If the target is killed without either of the attackers dying, the attackers fight each other and the winner of the combat becomes the target. This goes on until everyone is tired. This helps develop endurance, increase teamwork and (hopefully) shows you the benefits of mobility.
• Bull Dog - Take two single swords and place them point to point on the ground. Players lay on their backs an arms length plus six inches from the hilt of their swords. At the call of Lay On, both players attempt to stand, reach their sword and slay the other player. This helps produce speed and works on the ability to retrieve one's fallen weapon from the ground with alacrity.
• The Blunted Charge - This is something to use during ditch battles. Choose a flank to try to circle around on the opposing side. When you engage with the enemy (if they choose to engage you), DO NOT attack them. Step in close to their personal space while defending against their attacks. Observe how you and your opponent react to you beeching their space. This drill allows you to concentrate on approach and stance (footwork and timing) as well as defending without having to worry about throwing shots.
• Hack and Slash - This is an excellent way to warm up as well as try new weapon combos and throwing new shots. Two people fight duel style. When one player gets a successful hit on the other, the person who was hit calls out the shot, but doesn't take it (i.e. if you're hit in the arm, call "Arm" but don't lose the arm). This leads to fast-paced exchanges of blows where both sides can concentrate on trying to get blows to land while not having to place so much emphasis on defending (though, once you get the hang of it, you'll also want to work on blocking those incoming shots. . . can't make it too easy on the other guy ;-). It's kind of the other side of the coin from The Blunted Charge. A variation on this for more than two people is to have one player be the target and have the rest of the participants take turns attacking the target. Each attacker fights for 20 seconds, then a new attacker switches in. Every two minutes one of the attackers becomes the new target.

Wrap up

I'd like to give acknowledgements to Amtgard Combat for their great online discussions and articles. Also do the contributors who've given suggestions and contributions.