Advantages for Defense

I've been thinking about why things do and do not feel safe, and why sometimes I'll say something like the following:

"I should be dead."

And then, someone will respond with:

"Yes."

Or perhaps even:

"No, not really." 

Which is the interesting bit.

Assuming that my opponents aren't completely off-base, I think that this means I am not taking everything into account. This idea, combined with Edward's Four Advantages for Melee, led me to think about what advantages can be established in fencing.

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Let's be clear about what I mean about "advantage". An advantage is a relationship between the positioning of the two fencers, whereby it is easier for one to stab the other. I will likely ruminate on each of these advantages further, after writing them down and trying to invoke them tonight. I have performed this exercise before, and will likely go back and look at what I wrote previously to see how it compares to this list.

My guesstimate is that it takes about two advantages more than your opponent has in order to get a clean kill. These advantages are all defensive - the basic idea being that if you have two (Maybe two? Unsure. That's so specific. But I guess I'll run with it.) more defenses than your opponent has, you can defend yourself better than they can, and it is time to stab.

The advantages I can think of are:

• Long Distance
• You have longer reach than I do by 6" or more, thus I am in your "zone of threat" but you are not in mine. This requires more than 6" of range difference to really work.
• "Out of Presence"
• This means that my tip is not pointed directly at any part of your body. The Spanish care about this quite a bit, in terms of the Left Defensive Plane and Right Defensive Plane. Fabris believes that you should duck, so they go out of your presence above your head.
• "Inside their Blade"
• This means that you are between their blade and the arc by which their arm would return to the centered, farthest-out-extended position.
• "Doubly inside their blade"
• This means that not only are you inside of their blade, but you also are inside of the arc created by rotating their arm along the plane of their arm. This is the arc created by rotating in a circle at the elbow, rather than the extend/retract from the elbow used to thrust.
• Generally this is only possible from the outside line.
• Tempo
• Your opponent is performing an action with their blade which they will not be able to stop before you trade this advantage for another one. Or stab them.
• Obedience
• This is the same as tempo, but you are provoking the action.
• Ripping
• You have cut into the false edge of their blade from inside of their blade such that you are at a 90º angle with it, then you return online and stab them. This is similar to obedience, except that it is a very particular instance of it.
• Short Distance
• You have at least 6" less of reach than I do, and you are inside my tip such that I am in your "zone of threat" but you are not in mine.
• Free implement
• You have an implement free to act, such as a dagger to parry on reaction. Implements tend to have an area that they can parry and an area that they can't parry.

Additional things which are not advantages include:

• Having opposition on their blade
• This lets you apply strength to create advantages, but is not an advantage in and of itself.
• Having blade contact
• Again, this lets you push them out of your presence or rip their blade, but is not an advantage.
• Having an Extended Arm As Per the Spanish
• Again, it isn't an advantage until you use the strength of the extension to push their blade out of your presence.

So, that sure is a list. I will be interested to see how using these things plays out.

Edit: "Zone of threat" is the idea that, in order to stab someone, their body needs to occupy a space that is neither too far away nor too close. I don't want to go into specifics here, because there are exciting exceptions.