Pre-Practice Burble

This post is intended as a semi-physical reminder of what I plan to work on today.

Over the past week, I have been drilling disengages which keep my tip pointed in the presence of my opponent. I think that they are a valuable tool, which requires some consideration about when to and when not to use them. At the moment, my flowchart is as follows:

• Place my hilt on the line segment connecting the part of my presence closest to their hilt, to their hilt.
• Lean away from their blade, to hide behind my blade.
• If they disengage, step to place my body on the opposite side of my blade, while not really moving it.
• If they move to find my blade with theirs without moving their hilt, perform a diesngage and lean, possibly not really moving my hilt.
• If they move to find my blade with theirs and move their hilt, step forward dropping my body and raising my hilt. The transition is from seconda to prima, or from terza-quarta to quarta. This should either stab them above or below their hilt, depending on how high their hilt is.
• Pass through at this point, because if I don't stab them then we will end up wrestling.
• There's the possibility that a large disengage will be necessary first, so the transitions would be switched in that case.
• If they move to find my blade while moving their hilt forward, yield around their blade and step away from their blade, essentially letting their tip pass between my sword and myself, trusting momentum (and my dagger) to keep them from touching me.
• In general, circle around to the opening that they give me.

I also re-read a part of Fabris giving advice to taller and shorter people - basically, he says short people should gain their opponent's blade, then take a passing step and pass through, in order to deny them the advantage of their reach.

Additionally, he says that someone with more reach should fire center-line shots without worrying about parrying, while using distance to defend oneself. It's nice to have an after-the-fact justification for things I do.