Warrior Training

 TRAINING OF A WARRIOR: HOW

- Training schedule is grueling and meticulous

The schedule that was forced upon me was meticulous and gruelling, and except for rest and feeding, alternated between times of study and times of training, largely in arms, but partly in the use of various devices as common to the Goreans as adding machines and scales are to us.

(Tarnsman)

- Ten days of ten hours each in training to learn a skill from an experienced warrior

For ten days had we trained, for ten Gorean hours a day. Of the past forty passages eight had been divided, no blood adjudged drawn. In thirty-two I had been adjudged victorious, nineteen times to the death cut.

(Tribesmen)

- Older, experienced warrior testing & accepting as a trainee

Without warning, with blinding speed, the bronze-headed spear flew towards my breast, the heavy shaft blurred like a comet's tail behind it. I twisted, and the blade cut my tunic cleanly, creasing the skin with a line of blood as sharp as a razor. It sunk eight inches into the heavy wooden beams behind me. Had it struck me with that force, it would have passed through my body.

'He's fast enough,' said the man who had cast the spear. 'I shall accept him.'

This was my introduction to my instructor in arms, whose name was also Tarl. I shall call him the Older Tarl.

(Tarnsman)

- Training by sparring with a more experienced warrior until the trainee can beat him

During my training with the sword, the Older Tarl cut me unpleasantly a number of times, shouting out, annoyingly enough, I thought, 'You are dead!' At last, near the end of my training, I managed to break through his guard and, pulling my stroke, to drive my blade against his chest. I withdrew it bright with his blood. He flung down his sword with a crash on the stone tiles and clasped me to his bleeding chest, laughing.

'I am dead!' he shouted in triumph. He slapped me on the shoulders, proud as a father who has taught his son chess and has been defeated for the first time.

(Tarnsman)

TRAINING OF A WARRIOR: WHERE

- Seeking out masters of arms to learn from

That he was now of the Caste of Warriors did not change much with Cernus, of course, save that a strip of red silk, with those of blue and yellow, now adorned his left sleeve. I did know that Cernus had been, for years, trained in the use of weapons. Indeed, he was said to be, and I do not doubt it, first sword in the house. He had doubtless hired masters of arms because he wished to acquire skill in weapons, but I think, too, he may, even for years, have had in mind his investiture as Warrior. 

(Assassin)

- War schools

His [Dietrich of Tarnburg's] campaigns were studied in all the war schools of the high cities. I knew him from scrolls I had studied years ago in Ko-ro-ba (...)

(Mercenaries)

- Training camps

I inferred then that I found myself slave in a camp of soldiers of some city or country. The camp, however, situated as it was, did not seen an outpost or guard camp; it did not command terrain; it was not fortified; it was too small for a training camp or a wintering camp (...).

(Slave Girl)

- Martial courts

The steel, as is often the case, had seemed to think for itself. But I did not regret what I had done. I chuckled. Let them see, said I to myself, the skill of one who had once trained in the martial courts of Ko-ro-ba. 

(Savages)

TRAINING OF A WARRIOR: WHAT

- Most training is in arms, especially sword and spear

- Taught accuracy, using weapons with both hands, deflecting with shield

- Taught the use of crossbow and longbow, though some warriors hold them in contempt

- Trained to run long distances carrying weapons and shield and cover much ground in a day, alternating "warrior's pace" and "warrior's stride"

- Taught to tie knots expertly

- Trained in unarmed combat for emergencies

- Taught precision, observation, strategy and tactics, detecting hidden weapons

- Taught precise areas of the body to strike

Indeed, the largest part of my education was to be in arms, mostly training in the spear and sword.

(Tarnsman)

The spear seemed light to me because of the gravity, and I soon developed a dexterity in casting it with considerable force and accuracy. I could penetrate a shield at close distance, and I managed to develop a skill sufficient to hurl it through a thrown hoop about the size of a dinner plate at twenty yards.

(Tarnsman)

I was also forced to learn to throw the spear with my left hand.

Once I objected.

'What if you are wounded in the right arm?' demanded the Older Tarl. 'What will you do then?'

'Run?' suggested Torm, who occasionally observed these practice sessions.

'No!' cried the Older Tarl. 'You must stand and be slain like a warrior!'

(Tarnsman)

My training in the short, stabbing sword of the Goreans was as thorough as they could make it. I had belonged to a fencing club at Oxford and had fenced for sport and pleasure at the college in New Hampshire, but this current business was serious. Once again, I was supposed to learn to wield the weapon equally well with either hand, but, again, I could never manage to develop the skill to my genuine satisfaction. I acknowledged to myself that I was inveterately, stubbornly right-handed, for better or worse.

(Tarnsman)

I also learned the use of the shield, primarily to meet the cast spear obliquely so that it would deflect harmlessly. Towards the end of my training I always fought with shield and helmet.

(Tarnsman)

Besides the spear and sword, the crossbow and longbow were permitted, and these latter weapons perhaps tended to redistribute the probabilities of survival somewhat more broadly than the former. It may be, of course, that the Priest-Kings controlled weapons as they did simply because they feared for their own safety. I doubted that they stood against one another, man to man, sword to sword, in their holy mountains, putting their principles of selection to the test in their own cases. Incidentally, speaking of the crossbow and longbow, I did receive some instruction in them, but not much. The Older Tarl, my redoubtable instructor in arms, did not care for them, regarding them as secondary weapons almost unworthy for the hand of a warrior. I did not share his contempt, and occasionally during my rest periods had sought to improve my proficiency with them. 

(Tarnsman)

I then turned, and climbed through the broken, cerrated edges of this natural stone bowl, found myself in the open fields, and began to run, with the long, slow warrior's pace, that pace in which warriors are trained, that pace which may be maintained, even under the weight of weapons, accouterments and a shield, for pasangs. 

(Players)

It is nothing for a warrior to cover ninety pasangs on foot in a day. This is usually done by alternating the warrior's pace with the warrior's stride, and allowing for periods of rest. Few who have been invested in the scarlet of the warriors cannot match this accomplishment. I, and many others, can considerably improve upon it.

(Marauders)

I flipped one of the thongs about her wrists, then again, then turned a double opposite overhand, with a twist following the first overhand.

"My," she said, wiggling her wrists, "you tied that quickly."

I did not tell her, of course, but Warriors are trained to tie that knot, and most can do it in less than three Ihn.

"I wouldn't struggle," I said.

"Oh!" she said, stopping, pinched.

"You will tighten it," I said.

"It is an interesting knot," she said, examining her bound wrists. "What do you call it?"

"It is a Capture Knot," I said.

(Assassin)

I hoped I might be able to loosen the ropes. They were thick, and coarse. They were not binding fiber, designed for the perfect holding of prisoners and slaves, nor chains. Too, they had not been knotted by trained warriors or guardsmen. 

(Guardsman)

"Free men fight with weapons," said Miles. "They are not animals."

"Warriors are trained in unarmed combat," I said.

"But only as a last resort, only for emergencies," said Miles. 

(Guardsman)

I thrust him back twice with the handle of the shovel, the second time plunging the handle into his solar plexus. He stopped, paralyzed by the latter blow. But he did not fall. He could not then defend himself. I was breathing heavily. I did not, of course, strike him. That precise point of the body is one of the target areas taught to warriors. Such a blow is usually given with a thrust of the butt of a spear, generally in the crowding of close combat when you cannot bring the weapon about. He lifted his head, looking at me in amazement. He did not understand how such a blow could have stopped one of his strength. Then he threw up in the marsh. 

(Explorers)

I did not look up. Warriors, of course, are trained to rely upon peripheral vision.

(Renegades)

Then it occurred to me that there must be some vital center not mentioned by Sarm, probably a crucial organ or organs for pumping the body fluids of the Priest-Kings, most simply something corresponding to the heart. But of course he would not tell me of this, nor of its location. Rather than reveal this information he would undoubtedly prefer that I hack away at doomed Misk as though he were a block of insensate fungus. Not only would I not do this because of my affection for Misk but even if I intended to kill him I surely would not have done so in this manner, for it is not the way a trained warrior kills. 

(Priest-Kings)

"Consider his wounds," I said. "The man I fought was a master, a trained killer, either of the warriors or of the assassins. He struck him as he wished, not to kill but in the feigning of a mortal attack." 

(Beasts)

"Do you think I cannot tell one Kur from another?" I asked. Warriors are trained in acute observation and retention. The recognition and comprehension of a detail, sometimes subtle, can sometimes make a difference between life and death. 

(Beasts)

"Between the third and fourth robes," I told her, "there is a sheathed dagger, concealed in the lining. Keep your hands away from it."

"You are observant," she said.

A warrior is trained to look for such things. 

(Beasts)

It had not been difficult to detect his approach, even apart from the more obvious clues I had called to his attention. The senses of a warrior are trained. His life may depend on it.

(Explorers)

"You speak of simple rencers as though they were trained warriors, of ruses, of strategems and tactics which might be the mark of a Maximus Hegesius Quintilius, of a Dietrich of Tarnburg."

"Or of a Ho-Hak, or a Tamrun, of the Rence," I said.

(Vagabonds)