Violence Practices

Sunday and Monday's practices were good. This post is mostly spitballing random thoughts, because I've got no overarching sword-theory that I'm working on right now.

Sunday I ended up authorizing in long s-word. It is pretty great, and it's especially a fun form to periodically bring into melee. Speaking of melee, there was melee on Sunday! Yaaaaay.

We ended up doing a bunch of line drills, primarily. Line drills are hard to do, but we need to do them to get better at the melees. The particular focus of this one was in rolling lines. There were two lines, and one person to the side. People were expected to fight some, and then eventually the person to the side would choose a line and start rolling it. Before the side-person starts moving, all hits are called out but not taken. Afterwards, shots are called normally.

I liked the drill because the incentives were very similar to normal melee line incentives. Eventually I started fighting more conservatively, because I realized that if someone has their tip close to me when the line starts rolling, I will die. I started hanging back in my guard and waiting to either catch the roll or assist the roll, which is pretty much how zippered lines normally go in melee. We weren't practicing the creation of internal flanks, but that wasn't the point of the drill.

I feel like I did pretty well both at rolling lines and at stopping the roll when it began. It was pointed out that my chosen stance was kind of gaming things by accident, so maybe next time I start farther back or in a less offensive stance.

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Near the end of practice, I had a realization about the way I throw thrusts. In general when I'm fighting for keeps, I set myself with my hand forward and my blade to the far outside line. If my opponent commits to taking my blade, I perform a hilt-first disengage and stab them in the gut. If my opponent stays in guard, I try to do a thrust with false-edge leading. This is much more effective because of the particular way I hold my sword. This thrust should cut through the weak of my opponent's sword, thereby foiling any counterattack and their parry at the same time.

I have previously had trouble with people who hold their sword particularly far out. I have since realized that I can actually angle the cut so that my tip creates a curve, instead of a line. Instead of going from the outside line through my opponent's sword to stab them, I can cut a different path with my sword. This path goes from the outside line, to my blade being almost vertical, on to thrusting into my opponent's body.

This preserves the defensive and offensive properties, but lets me apply opposition at a much more advantageous spot. It's pretty cool, and I still need to explore all of the possibilities therein. I have managed to surprise more than one person with it at this point, though when doing this I need to be prepared to move forward more than I normally would with a false-edge-opposition-cutting-thrust. This is because this new method takes a bit longer, and also weirdly it can be initiated from farther away. This is because the normal counter for false-edge-opposition-cutting-thrust is having one's arm extended very far, such that pushing through the weak of the blade would put my sword to the other side of my opponent's body, but not in a place I can thrust.

Maybe I should add a passing step or something. Also, my hilt sort of goes in front of my eyes and it's hard for me to eyeball if I have touched my opponent yet. Maybe I need to drill responding to the tactile sensation of thrusts?

*****

Monday practice was kind of full of derp. It was probably useful in some holistic way, but there were just so many moments of weird things. I spent most of the practice working the new cutting thrust described above, or fighting single, or fighting shorter-than-usual sword.

I started drilling with a dude, but bailed on the drill when I realized that we were drilling things that I deeply and explicitly don't want to do in my particular game. Namely, I don't want first-intention dagger defenses to be a thing for me, with a few exceptions. Defense always starts with the sword in some way. Either the sword parries, or it beats, or it serves to zone-block and limit my opponent's options. I am very aware of how easy it can be to trick someone's dagger into doing the wrong things, and my game is very sword-primary.

My lack of ability to care about drills if they are neither historical nor My Thing leaves me somewhat hesitant about the non-historical classes of KWAR next week, but I'm sure it will be fun regardless.

The other violence was pretty good, I guess? I fought most of the people I have been learning a lot from fighting recently. There were many derp moments, regardless.

I think that the number of pre-loaded intentions in my violence macro needs to depend very heavily on the weight, agility, and tip-heaviness of the weapon of my opponent.

I also pulled of some pretty sweet Spanish-ish stuff. I need to remember to ask experienced diestros about the situation I keep getting into, where I hilt-parry my opponent and lever them around from the inside line to the extremely low outside line with my bottom quillon. It usually turns out somewhere between okay and good for me, but something feels weird about doing it in a Spanish game.

I have continued to try to pull off my reverse-giarata against both right and left-handed opponents. That entire sub-game seems more effective against left-handed opponents, but it's okay against right-handed opponents. It usually doesn't get me dead, but I'm not sure how to make it land on my opponent. I think people tend to see a situation that they are not used to, then they prepare to back off. Or they don't commit their thrusts hard enough. Perhaps developing my false-edge cutting thrust from the inside line with the wrist angled would make my life better. Perhaps I should try that with a giarata-step, or a rightwards-diagonal lunge? Who knows.

I need to explicitly work on fighting opponents who have more reach than me. That means using a 37-inch sword and fighting someone with a 45-inch or 42-inch sword.

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In conclusion, I've got nothing.