By Greg Mele

A pell is simply a (reasonably) solid practice target that approximates a human being. Warriors throughout history to practice technique, power, and endurance have used pells, often in the form of a simple wooden post. Amongst the Japanese sword practitioners, large stacks of bamboo or wet straw are bundled together into a sort of upright pell, and then are subjected to "tameshigiri" or test-cutting.

There is a variety of materials to conduct test-cutting on today, and of these, a solid wooden, rubber, or metal cored pell is about the least desirable. While it will provide a fine approximation of striking a solid, possibly armored, target, it will also wreak havoc on your expensive replica weapons. Therefore, when reading the below instructions, assume that in all cases, I am advocating using a wooden practice sword, rather than a steel replica.

Pells come in two varieties: standing and hanging. Of these, the standing pell is the simpler and more common of the two, being as simple as a wooden post driven into the ground. Hanging pells work on the same principles of a boxer’s heavy bag, and a heavy bag can be one solution for a pell. I shall try and give a few ideas of different pell designs I have seen and used their pros, and cons.

Standing Pell:

The Post:

The simplest method of building a standing pell is just sink a wooden post into the ground, with a little quick drying concrete to hold it in place. Make the post long enough that six feet or so remain above surface, and paint whatever targets you want on it. The pros to this method are simplicity, relatively low cost, and easily found materials. The disadvantages, to my mind, however, outweigh the advantages. Your pell in this case is permanently fixed to one location; the wood will be subject to weather damage, including rot, as the concussion from you practice sword splits the wood grain; and a solid wooden pell can be hell on your practice weapons.

You can wrap some carpet or foam around the pell, and tape it in place, and this will protect both pell and practice sword, but the real problem with the design is that it encourages simply standing in front of a post and hitting it, which does very little to simulate the conditions under which you will fight. Your sword work can become brilliant, but you’ll be training yourself to stand rooted to one spot, and hew away at your opponent, who unlike the post, will probably traverse, pass, void, and swing back. (I hope.)

The Free-Standing Post

The absolute immobility of the pell has been answered a few different ways, one of which is to take the wooden post, and mount it to an old wheel drum, which can usually be found at any junk yard for a relatively low price. The wooden post is then placed in the center of the wheel drum, and affixed into place with concrete. You now have a free standing pell that, while heavy, will not fall over, and can be tipped on an angle and rolled to wherever you want it in your yard. The post can again be wrapped in carpet or foam to protect your weapons.

Besides being more portable than a sunken pell, however, there really isn’t much additional advantage to this sort of pell. It still doesn’t really do anything to facilitate footwork, nor is it really portable. It is, however, easy to make, and will probably last forever. If weight and portability isn’t a concern at all, replace the wooden post with steel piping, and you have a training tool you can pass on to your descendants.

A better design for a free-standing pell is an H-base shaped pell. This particular design is made entirely out of 3’ sections of steel pipe (about 1 1/4" in diameter), connected by "t-joint" connectors. Basically, the base is made in the shape of the letter "H," as in the diagram below. In the center of the cross bar, a final t-joint is placed, with the third joint facing up. Additional stability is provided to the frame, by attaching elbow joints to the outside of each leg, and turning the elbow so that it lies flat, and faces outwards. (Again, see diagram.)

The body of the pell will be screwed into the open center joint you have remaining. The body is simply made of additional pipe, of whatever length you want your pell to stand at. This is then wrapped in some sort of cushioning. Carpet or conveyor belt is quite resilient, camping-pad foam less so, but are both easily found. I’ve recently seen this same pipe core surrounded by a series of foam "noodles" sold in most toy stores as pool toys. As silly as this may sound, this is actually a pretty resilient padding material, which will also minimize damage to your practice sword.

 H-Frame Pell Design 

The benefits of this design are durability, portability, and versatility. Although certainly not light (altogether, you’re probably looking at 25 - 30 lbs.), you can unscrew the body from the base, disassemble the base, put the whole thing into a duffel bag, and store it in a closet, or lug it to a practice. It will assemble or tear down in a matter of a couple of minutes.

In terms of durability, the pell I have of this design, and is now nearly a decade old. I’ve had to re-wrap it in duct tape occasionally, as the carpet tears, and I confess the time for a new covering draws nigh, but the frame and body are perfectly sound. Even if they were beginning to show signs of breaking, one pell every ten years seems acceptable.

Versatility: Oddly enough, this particular design also can help develop foot work, notably traverses and passes. Because you have the long legs of the base sticking out, as you close and traverse around the pell, you will find that you need to learn how to step so you don’t trip. This might seem self-evident, but as you practice your cuts and routines, you will quickly find that you initially bump and stumble around the pipe frame. Learning how to step around/over the base, and continue to make effective cuts and thrusts, will prove to be a useful aid in analyzing your own footwork.

Hanging Pells:

Hanging pells come in a variety of forms. The simplest, would be to buy a good, boxer’s heavy bag, and hang it somewhere where you will have enough room to swing a sword, and practice your footwork. If you don’t want to spend the money on a heavy bag, you can even get an army surplus duffel bag, and stuff it with straw, pillows, or (for the bold) sand, to simulate the same thing.

The down side to this pell is the same as most standing pells, it’s very static, and doesn’t really encourage footwork. Also, the heavy bag can begin to wear fairly quickly, as you keep whacking it with a wooden stick, which can become pretty expensive.

A "Five Dollar" Pell

A great, cheap alternative is a tire pell. First, acquire a large, used automobile tire. Flat’s fine, and it doesn’t need a bit of tread, so long as the basic shape and material is intact. You can usually buy these at a tire shop or a service station for around a dollar.

Next, from any hardware store, buy heavy, polyester rope, between 1/4" and 1/2" in diameter. You can buy 100’ of this for three or four dollars.

Tie one end of the rope to the tire, toss the other end over a stout tree limb, cross beam, or roof rafter, and hoist it up in the air until the tire roughly covers the same height as your head and torso. Tie the rope off so the tire remains in place, and you’re all set.

You can beat on one of these pells with single or two-handed weapons, and with any level of force, and the tire will remain unharmed. The tire will have a tendency to spin as you hit it, and you can learn how to circle with, or against this motion, which does provide some instruction on circling and closing with an opponent.

The tire pell is still relatively immobile, however, which is fine if your opponent’s either never circle or pass, or you can convince everyone you fight to walk directly into your line of attack.

Since neither scenario should probably be relied upon, the easiest way to create a little more random movement in your pelling is to turn your tire pell into a pendulum. To do this, you’ll need to hang your tire outside, and you’ll need a tree with a limb that is at least 15’ off of the ground, with 20 - 25’ being preferable. Basically, you simply hang the pell from a higher branch, so that the rope creates a long, pendulum-type arc, as the pell is struck. The effect this has is that, when you strike the pell, it "runs away." Depending on the blow, the tire will either retreat straight back, or slightly to the left or right.

If you pursue the pell, continuing to cut at it, it will continue to give ground, until it reaches the end of its arc, at which point it will begin to advance on you. This can be great practice for side-stepping, or for learning to strike while on the retreat, especially after you’ve been smacked by the tire a few times.

A "Quintain"-type Pell

The quintain was a device used to help medieval knights develop skill with the lance. Basically, it was a man-sized post, with a cross arm that was able to pivot around in a full 360-degree arc. On one side was a shield, and on the other, a sack, filled with some sort of weight. The knight would charge the quintain, and strike the shield, causing the arm to whirl around. He had to do this and avoid being struck in the back by the counterweight as he passed.

There is a similar way to design a hanging pell, which I have seen in a few places within the combat practices of the Society for Creative Anochronism.

You will hang a rope from a limb or rafter, just as you did with the tire pell. However, pass the loose end of the rope through a wooden dowel (these come in 48") lengths, that is about 1 1/2 in diameter. Tie the end of the rope to a swiveling eye bolt of some sort, so that the dowel will remain in place, and the swivel can turn freely without affecting the dowel itself. Sink an eye bolt into each end of the dowel, so that it hangs down from the dowel, towards the ground. Pad the dowel rod with closed-cell foam, such as that found in a camping mattress pad. The swivel should be hanging just above head level.

From the swivel, hang your tire, again using the polyester rope. This tire should be roughly the same height as your head and shoulders. For added realism and versatility, you can attach a second tire to the bottom of the first, so that you have a tire pell that is roughly the size of a human being from the head to the knees.

Now, cut two 3/4" dowel rods down to three foot lengths. Using a six to eight inch long piece of rope or leather, hang your three foot dowels from either end of the four foot cross bar. Pad these hanging "arms" completely with foam. (I would recommend an inch, but you can probably use as little as 1/2" if you don’t mind a little pain....)

You are ready to use your "Quintain Pell." Basically, when you strike the body, head, or arms of the pell, as it swings one of the "arms" and will swing out at you. This will help you practice blocking, deflecting, or moving, as well as attacking and riposting. Please note that the "arms" can swing back very hard, so you should only practice with this sort of pell while wearing a full helmet. If working with a single-handed sword, you can also carry a shield to help in your defense.

Training with "Double-Weight" Weapons:

The old Roman tradition of training at the post with wooden weapons of "double weight" continued through the medieval period. The idea is a simple one: by training with heavier weapons, you develop the muscles directly connected to fighting techniques, so that using a real weapon seems weightless.

This isn’t a bad idea, per se, although modern weight training methods are obviously a superior way to condition yourself overall. I have seen (and tried) a similar method, of wearing three pound wrist weights while practicing at the pell, and the effects are similar to using the double weighted sword.

If you do opt for this sort of training, the most important thing to remember is form, FORM. This cannot be expressed enough. Your technique must be done slowly, and perfectly, every time. While this is true of any pell work, when using heavy practice weapons it is even more so. Your arms will grow tired more quickly, and the tendency is to just start "throwing" your sword out at the target. If you do this, this is what you will be training your muscle memory to do, and this is how you will fight.

Using the Pell:

So now you have some sort of pell, or maybe even one of each. How do you use it? Obviously, you use it to practice your cuts, for both precision, focus, and force, but how do you do this to optimize your training? Here’s a few tips passed on to me, that I have found useful.

Practice S-L-O-W-L-Y: When we practice technique with blinding speed, we usually aren’t practicing technique at all. When you are working on your body mechanics, do so with excruciating slowness. What do I mean by excruciating? Imagine that you are in a silly slow-motion sequence in an action movie. Now go slower. No, slower. Close, but slow it down some more.

Practicing at this speed allows you to really train muscle memory and encodes all of the nuances of your technique and body mechanics into you swordwork.

Practice Quickly: Another good technique is to work on a sequence of both single blows and combinations, and beginning with that excruciating slowness I keep talking about, slowly pick up the pace, so that, by the fourth or fifth time through, you are cutting as fast as you can. Then move on to the next combination.

Practice Accuracy: Make some 1" marks on your pell, such as those that correspond to the basic eight lines of attack, or permutations of them. Again, beginning with (do I have to say it) painful slowness, strike your blows so you hit each target mark square on with your edge. As you grown in confidence, pick up the pace, until eventually, you are striking at full speed. Compare your accuracy at full speed compared to the snail’s pace you began with. Ultimately, you should be able to hit the target at full speed as well as you do in slow motion.

Practice Focus: The single greatest virtue of the pell is learning how to focus your blows. By "focus" I mean learning how to cut into your targets, instead of merely striking their surface. The trick is learning how to cut hard enough to get the job done, but not so hard that you commit everything to a single blow. Try to envision that your actual target you are striking at is about a hand’s width into the target. In other words, if you are cutting at an opponent’s left temple, your "target" you are trying to reach, is his right eye. (Unfortunately for him, half of his head is in the way.)

Practice range and footwork: The disadvantage of most pells is that they don’t hit back. The advantage of that, however, is that you can study how to close distance and utilize your footwork, without getting clubbed repeatedly for your troubles. Start completely out of range from the pell, and practice closing into range and passing, making your cuts or thrusts as you do so.

Practice the way you fight: If you never intend to use armour, this may not be so important. On the other hand, if you ever do spar in armour, don’t be surprised when you learn just how much historical gauntlets, helmets, and limb armour, can alter or distort your body mechanics. With well constructed armour, these problems are usually minimized, but the restrictions of helmets and gauntlets are something that every medieval fighter should be familiar with. Therefore, as your proficiency and skill on the pell grows, be sure to incorporate wearing your armour into all of the above drills.

Practice consistently: A pell can do more to improve your technique and accuracy than any other training device you will find. Combined with test-cutting, the student has an almost unbeatable pair of self-training devices that will round out the experience gained in drilling and sparring. However, as with anything else, the virtues of the pell will only be realized if it is used regularly. To paraphrase a question once put to a Zen master:

Student: "How long should I practice pell work?"
Master: "Until you die."

Remember: practice, practice, practice and form, form, form = good technique. Train slowly and perfectly, train with a variety of single blows and combinations, integrate movement with your footwork, and your swordplay will really blossom.