Melee Practice

Yesterday we had a melee practice. I also had a flash of insight right before sleeping that I can't remember for the life of me, so maybe I can recall it if I just start typing.

It was good times. I reassembled the longsword, and one of our local OGRs kindly provided a suggestion for a better shim. It's not easily-removable which makes me sad, but I don't really use that blade for anything other than the longsword very often anyway. I also added a leather washer next to the pommel, which makes it fit much more snugly and solidly.

My warm-ups were an illustration of why I would want to use the longsword for cut and thrust. I ended up in a hanging parry pretty often, which in non-C&T play doesn't give me many options. In C&T, however, I would totally be able to go from that position to a squinting cut while remaining defended.

Melee happened too! First, we did some fox and hounds. It was a great warmup for more complex melee, and super fun to try going back and forth between my standard case of rapiers and longsword. I think I did better with longsword, honestly.

I spent the rest of the practice thinking about where it is appropriate to use different types of implements, given that we played several 4-on-4 and line drill games.

• Longsword feels like it would be so good in a very static line situation, like a capture the flag sort of thing. If I can maintain range, it is so good. I can also frequently catch people who are moving backwards because having five feet of sword plus my standard lunge is so long.
• Sword and dagger is something I need to try more in melee. It would be nice to be able to commit to taking one person out in fox and hound drills. Dagger would allow me to commit deep to taking out one person and not care if I get too close, where case wants to maintain range, which is bad for me if I want to kill someone in a 1v2 situation. Getting close to one person and essentially using their body to foul the other person's attacks seems fun.
• Case of 45" swords is pretty much made for zippering, skirmishing, and striking from the side. One sword gets committed to fouling their blade, then the other one stabs. It's great, and it is a strong tool for forcing individual people to retreat.
• Buckler / Rotella is something that I need to try more in melee. It seems like it would allow for safer presses. I don't like pressing unless I can snipe from range, so it might be good to work on that. Like, maybe I push my opponent's weaponry to the other side of my buckler with my sword, then advance and stab?

I had trouble with the fast-paced line drill we were working on. Usually in line situations, I use distance to defend myself and try to draw the person across from me forward, in order to create internal flanks. I couldn't do that in the drill we did, partly because people were pushing very hard and not behaving tentatively, and partly because the people across from me had super-solid defense.

I was also asked about how to fight people with case. My answer is, and remains, that you should try to get both of their swords on one side of your body and then move in. In theory you can also push both of their swords outwards, but that is hard to make work.

At dinner afterwards, people talked about a bunch of things. Of particular note was a conversation in which we talked about what direction we parry things when trying to zipper lines.

• I parry forward, attempting to push my opponents' blades across their bodies. This unfortunately creates opportunities for them to parry, which skilled people can use to prolong their life.
• I also push swords sideways, which makes life easier for stabbing people, but also forces me to put myself in some danger from the opposite side that I'm pushing.
• As well, this and parrying forward both put people's blades in the way of the direction I'm going. This means I either have to step daintily over their blades, or I have to wait for them to finish moving.
• Many times, I've stabbed someone in a line who take a long time to leave and also leaves their sword sort of in my way, which ruins the momentum of my zipper.
• One fencer at dinner parries downwards, which makes it hard to maneuver through your opponents' tips.
• One other very successful melee fencer parries upwards. This puts blades above you, and it makes sense to me that this is a more "sustainable" parry, since it doesn't put blades in your own way.

So, I need to practice throwing shots between prima and seconda more in melees, to see if I can get free parries out of it. This will require me to duck down a bit and try to catch swords upwards, but I believe it might be a more effective way to do things than my current strategy of pushing forwards and sideways with case in melee.