- That push-through thrust from the outside line only works if your sword is in a guard which is closer to Giganti than to Fabris. So, tip should be pointing toward their shoulder, and arm should be bent at the elbow.
- I managed to get the yield from inside to outside line to work!
OK, so now for the real entry.
While fighting people, I realized that there are several effective tactics which I was just not using. For example, I wasn't harassing my opponents by throwing shots to their arms and throwing feints, to feel out how they might parry. While I have been obsessively pursuing the "true" fight, I have sadly let this aspect of my game fall by the wayside a bit. To be fair - feints are only effective if my attacks are a true threat. And studying the "true" game allows me to understand better what is a true threat.
I also realized that, without really being cognizant of it, I had changed from pointing my tip to my opponent's right side to having my sword fully extended. This is very nice if my opponent just cedes the center line to me. But a lot of the time, my opponents would counter this very-extended Fabris-esque stance with two-tempo parry-ripostes, which were an effective counter. So I started integrating a slightly bent elbow and wrist into my game again, which has allowed me to perform much stronger "scoops" and "yields" from the outside line.
I just realized that I have not described "nail", "thrust in prima-seconda", "scoop", or "yield" in this instance of my blog! This can not stand! These definitions primarily exist for righty-on-righty-fighty. The principles work for the righty-on-lefty fight, but they are much different. This next bit exists mostly as a self-indulgent exercise in flowcharting, to think about my own fight.
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ACTIONS ON THE OUTSIDE LINE
Where the "appropriate stance" for the outside line is somewhat like Giganti's specified stance on the outside line, except that you don't care deeply if your opponent has their sword on top of yours.
These are the things I drill when I am at home by myself. In order of importance but not appearance, they are:
- Thrust in prima-seconda
- Yield
- Scoop (Useful illustration of a general principle of distance)
- Nail (to provoke situations in which one can yield or perform a thrust in prima-seconda)
- Full-circle yield (only really useful against people who refuse their blade)
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Nail
The nail is a thrust taken when your opponent has their blade somewhat raised and to their right side, more pointing forward than upwards, such that they are presenting the weak of their blade to you. This is an effective technique when you are relatively far away from your opponent, as well. Their blade is not across their body - if their tip is past the center of their body, this technique becomes difficult if not inapplicable. Do the thrust in prima-seconda instead. If your opponent is in a somewhat central position in which they are presenting enough weak that you can just push through it with your false edge, just roll from your standard Giganti seconda-terza outside-line guard into a thrust in quarta. This is just a full-intent thrust. Hand positioning is important - you are using your hilt to protect your head and body, so your hilt should be about as high as your forehead. You can err your hilt positioning to the right if you have a dagger. Your thrust's target should be the head or throat. If your opponent has more reach than you, you should protect your body by leaning forward and using your dagger or hand to defend against this possibility.
- If your opponent performs a two-tempo parry-riposte, this should provide you ample time to perform a yield, described below.
- If your opponent can do a two-tempo parry-riposte while stepping forward you are somewhat but not completely boned. If you can perform a very tight yield, you can still succeed. You might need to defend yourself against their blade with your off-hand, but their line of ingress should be relatively obvious so dagger parries should be easy.
- If your opponent pushes just strong enough to prevent you from touching them, but does not pull their hilt and blade back into a two-tempo parry-riposte, you can take a diagonal offline step and roll your blade into a thrust in prima-seconda, because you are already pushing them farther off-line.
- If your opponent combines this with a step toward their right, you are somewhat but not completely boned. The response here should changed to be a yield. It needs to be tight, and you need to defend with your dagger, but their line of ingress should be relatively obvious.
Thrust in Prima-Seconda
This is a beautiful technique for not dying, but still killing your opponent. It requires you to be able to throw an appropriate, controlled thrust in prima, which is hard and requires you to drill it. This technique is initiated when your opponent has their blade relatively far to your right, across their body. This will usually be because you have pushed them there, because most people understand that it is bad to have their blade crossed across their body. Once you have your opponent in position, you take a left-diagonal passing step. You roll into prima-seconda, and extend your arm. You might need to extend your tip above your opponent's shoulder and then rotate your wrist to bring your tip on-line, if your opponent's sword is angled more forward than upward. If possible, it is nice to grab your opponent's blade between your blade and your front quillon by rotating toward prima from seconda.
- If your opponent raises their sword or thrusts in such a way that they push your sword away, keep walking in a diagonal line and use your hilt to control their blade and defend yourself. It is extremely unlikely that they will be able to launch an effective reprisal until you leave measure.
- I wonder if disengaging around the outside of your hilt such that your blade goes from being above their blade to below their blade in prima would be effective? It's a thing to try.
- If your opponent does a very hard two-tempo parry to the outside, you can change your step direction from diagonal left to diagonal right and turn this into a yield. It will take longer, because your true edge is touching their blade, but it isn't a bad choice.
- This is also a useful technique for the "riposte" part of a two-tempo parry-riposte.
Scoop
A "scoop" begins with my sword sitting in terza on the outside line. This works if my opponent is in a sword-low stance, so long as their sword is not refused. The movement begins with a false-edge upward push on someone's sword, followed by a left diagonal passing step as I transfer into performing a rightwards push with my blade. As I push right, I transfer into performing the thrust in prima-seconda as described above, with the following exception. My tip ends in their flank or sternum, because the thrust begins lower. This is intentionally a weak action, the purpose for which I will flowchart out. Positioning is extremely important for this technique, as you need to be far enough that your opponent can't strike you until you have finished pushing their tip across your body.
- If your opponent responds early by holding their sword pointing downwards far enough that you cannot scoop it, you need to respond with a full-circle yield, described below.
- If your opponent responds early by holding their sword pointing outwards, you need to respond with a yield, described below.
- If your opponent responds by throwing a thrust as their tip crosses past your body, you need to perform a yield and probably defend with your dagger.
- If your opponent responds by throwing a thrust as their tip passes your body, respond as outlined in the thrust in prima-seconda.
Yield
A yield is a form of disengage which begins by raising and leading the action with your hilt. The purpose of this is to establish your defense before you establish a new offensive threat by actually disengaging your blade. Generally, a yield is a second-intention action, though it can be performed as a first-intention action if your opponent's blade is far enough to your left and either straight toward you or offline. Your tip should end in their gut or flank.
The action is performed when your opponent's blade is on top of yours, and their true edge is touching your false edge. You twitch your blade to the left at your wrist, so that you can be sure to clear their quillons. Then you raise your hilt and drop your tip, taking either a lunge forward and to the right, or an inquartata-step (back foot moves behind front foot, ending in front of the front foot). As you move slightly to the right, your blade should clear under theirs, while still leaving your hilt in such a position that it is still defending you. This probably means your hand will be somewhat to your left, but not always. You will ideally strike your opponent while your hilt is higher than your tip.
- If your opponent holds their blade low, holds it angled far upwards, or is far away, you might need to flick your wrist upwards, in order to put your tip above your hilt. This will let you defend against those positions, and also slightly extend your range. This will mean your tip should end in their sternum or solar plexus.
- If you need additional power for this, you can roll over your hand instead of flicking your wrist. This will turn it into a half-cone-shaped cut leading with your false edge. This is basically the full-circle yield, outlined below, but used in a different place.
- If your opponent successfully defends against this, it is possible to do things here, but I have not thoroughly flowcharted it. Usually I just try to exit measure, or if my opponent is confused I take an additional step and perform a lunge with my dagger.
- If your opponent defends by moving backwards, you can lunge toward them if you performed the inquartata-step.
Full-Circle Yield
The full-circle yield is a form of yield with relatively limited application. Its main use is when your opponent's sword is too low or has moved such that it is pointing to your right, after you begin a yield. It is also useful against opponents fighting long case who keep their swords close to each other, in that you perform a full-circle yield around both blades, then push into their swords with your hilt to prevent reprisal.
This technique is performed by continuing the upward motion of your hilt, then rotating your hand and wrist in a counter-clockwise direction. There are two useful places you can go with this - either you can push directly against their blade with your hilt, or if you have caught yourself early enough, you can change your step to the right into a passing step to the left. In that case, you would try to place their blade in such a location that their obvious line toward you must pass through your strong edge. At the end of this technique, you will probably be leaning very far forward. Your tip should touch them in the belly or sternum.
- If you manage to get them onto your strong edge, you can perform actions similar to the thrust in prima-seconda. It is very possible that in order to do this, you will not complete the rotation, and will end your motion in terza, then slide up their blade to strike them in the belly or sternum.
- If your opponent returns their blade to the center line, you can easily flow this into the thrust in prima-seconda, by continuing your rotation through seconda and raising your hilt. And then if they push your blade to their outside line, you can yield again and this becomes a set of actions that can eternally flow into each other.
In general, on the outside line, when your opponent is to the center you use the nail, lunging yield, or scoop. If their right flank is somewhat exposed (they are faced somewhere to your left, instead of directly toward you) you use the thrust in prima-seconda, and if their left flank is somewhat exposed you either use the yield or scoop. (There is a blog post about positioning somewhere in here.)
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So anyhow. For the rest of practice, I did some other cool things. I spent some time telling people how I think they should go about killing me. I also performed a couple of really cool single-tempo defense/attacks in the tradition of Viedma's line in cross and weak below strong, assuming I'm interpreting his text correctly-ish. This is something I need to explore and map out as thoroughly in my head as the above techniques.
I also finally figured out the properties of a technique that I had come up with as the foil to the yield. A standard yield moves from the outside line into the inside line - This version of the yield moves from the inside line to the outside line. I will outline it below. It's interesting, but not necessarily useful.
I also realized that the motion for my tip in a yield in either direction is sort of like an angle-bracket (< >) with either a shorter top or bottom branch. The yield goes left slightly, then right quite a bit. This allows me to perform crisper, prettier yields. This also allows me to generalize and make disengages to the side, from below to above or vice versa, part of my game. Usually below-to-above and then a pushing-down thrust in terza is most useful thus far, but I have not formalized these techniques enough to drill them.
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Yield from Inside to Outside
This technique is useful only when your opponent's sword is on top of yours, and their body is pointing pretty far to your right. Additionally, their sword needs to be somewhat extended tip-out. This technique is performed by twitching your wrist such that your tip dances to the right a bit, then rolling from whatever guard you are in, through to prima. Raise your hilt such that your tip drops as this happens, and you are shielded by your hilt and the strong of your blade from reprisal. You should also take a diagonal passing step to the left while you do this, and exit measure so that you can think very hard about what you and your opponent did to get into that position. The only place that your tip will hit for this is their flank under their arm. You will need to bend your wrist somewhat to make your tip touch them, instead of slapping their belly with your flat.
- If they cut downwards hard in order to parry your blade, you can disengage around to their outside line and hit them with a real technique like a thrust in terza.
- This technique isn't actually that bad - it's useful against people who dive in to take your sword from the inside line, but don't go in far enough. In that case though, you will probably touch their leg rather than their body.
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I am still feeling out and firming up my theoretical flowchart for the actions I believe to be safest on the inside line. I think that perhaps the blade-extended Fabris-esque posture with very direct actions is good for the inside line? But in general I vastly prefer the outside line, and would tend to want to just disengage around their hilt on the outside and thrust in terza instead of dealing with the inside line and all of its double-kills.
Or maybe thrust in seconda from the inside line. Yeah, thrust in seconda is pretty cool.
Or maybe thrust in seconda from the inside line. Yeah, thrust in seconda is pretty cool.
