On Double-Kills

I am known to be an advocate of the art of rapier as described by Nicoletto Giganti. He provides the most succinct description of how to fight rapier of any master. With only a few exceptions, I find his first work to be excellent in all regards. As such, it should be no surprise that I turned to Giganti's text when I encountered a particular conundrum.

During Pennsic, I fought in the Ansteorran tournament. In one particular bout, I threw a thrust. A good few moments later, my opponent threw one. It made contact, but to my perception it was thrown after my shot had landed, so I called it "late". His response was that he "didn't do late". Frustrated, I fought him again and eventually won definitively. When I tried to explain the concept of "late" to him, I found that I did not have a good answer for why we do "late" in the SCA, aside from as a holdover from modern fencing.

Sure, it's cultural. But why is it there? What aspect of rapier fighting is captured in the concept of "late"? To answer this, I turn to Giganti. There is a particular notable commonality among almost all of Giganti's plates. Have a look.

[Giganti, Plate 5]
I'm sure it's running through the back of your head.

If you truly run someone through with a rapier, this generally places your body past the tip of their sword. This is depicted in almost every single plate of Giganti's text. Giganti shows the further precaution of placing your sword or hand in such a way that they cannot complete a cut from the elbow, as well - a sign showing exactly how concerned with after-blows and double-kills Giganti is.

[Giganti, Plate 16]
Run them through, reinforce.

If we stop our strikes like we do in SCA rapier, at a point where our tip is just barely touching our opponent, we lose that defensive advantage we would gain by moving past their tip. And then, with a flick of the wrist in an already-moving counter-thrust, our opponent can tap us on the nose in an after-blow that would not have hit if we had actually run them through.

[Giganti, Plate 20]
Attempting the action outlined on plate 20 without ending well past their tip is a sure recipe for disaster!


As such, "late" prevents some forms of after-blow, but not all. It also doesn't prevent the after-blow in a natural way. Is there any way that we can prevent this form of after-blow in a natural way, rather than relying on the rules to cover us?

A quick and entirely non-scientific brainstorming session turns up the following remedies:

• Thrust, land your tip on your opponent lightly, and then keep pushing until your blade has a foot of bend in it.
• Thrust deeply, and break from the elbow such that your blade doesn't really bend much, but your body continues forward.
• Only fight with a far shorter blade against a longer blades. That way, when you make contact with their mask, it's as though you had already pierced them with a foot of steel.

Obviously, there are problems with each of these. The first results in suboptimal blade geometry for parrying, as well as stiff shots regardless of how it lands originally. The second results in parrying with a significantly weaker part of the blade in some instances. I prefer the second, as it places less stress on my blade, but I would like to figure out better solutions if any exist. I have not thoroughly read Capoferro, but I image that with the amount of voiding he depicts, this would be an even greater issue for practitioners of his methods.

I have no complete, good answer. But writing this article has helped me figure out what I plan to do next. I hope that it has been at least a bit interesting for you, the reader.

(All plates Giganti herein depicted are available for viewing here. The Capoferro plate depicted is from Wiktenauer, a resource you should probably already know about.)
(My preferred translation of Giganti is the one by Tom Leoni. It's pretty much the best book you can acquire. Purchase it here.)