Footwork Chart for Fabris Rule #4 and Practice Notes

Yesterday, practice was once again brutally hot. I'm glad that I wear my motorcycle gloves to practice in, but I'm pretty sure they're making a large dent in my endurance, given that they are insulated for winter riding and both palms and wrists release a lot of heat. I'll need to try them at least one day for Pennsic, but I'll probably end up fighting most of Pennsic in a new pair of Darkwood leather gloves so my hands will be cooler and more dextrous.

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I primarily worked on two things - Fabris Rule for Single Rapier #4, and keeping my hilt at the same height as my opponent's hilt until I actually want to take an action. I will discuss both in detail here.

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I have here a footwork chart for how I have been executing Fabris Rule for Single Rapier #4. The reason for this chart is to show that you can, with slight preparation, go to either side from any foot-position. In the description of the rule, Fabris says you should go to the direction of your back foot, but I have found that sometimes I want to go a specific direction, such as when I am fighting single against case.

I fear that this isn't as legible as I had expected it would be.

As is my tradition, we shall go through this in the form of bullet-points.

• Begin in a position with your right foot forward. You should be outside of your opponent's lunge measure. You should not be in a specific guard yet as per Fabris Rule for Single Rapier #3, but you should be prepared to parry if your opponent performs a lunge with a passing step.
• If you wish to move to the right, step your back foot forward to the position marked "1R". You should adopt a guard with your blade and hilt parallel to the ground, close below their sword. In this step, you are entering Misura Larga, which should be their lunge measure.
• Take a step with your right foot to the position marked "2R". You should lift your tip, keeping your hilt at the same height from the ground such that your blade will cross theirs. You should lean to the right, such that if your opponent keeps their sword still, your sword will block them from attacking you.
• As you do the above step, you should be noting which side of your sword your opponent's sword ends up on.
• If your opponent's sword ends up on the left of your sword, continue leaning to the right and take a step with your left foot to the position marked "AR". You will maintain the crossing of your sword with theirs and stab them. This will require a bit of an awkward contortion of your torso, but it is doable.
• If your opponent's sword ends up on the right of your sword, that means that they have turned to follow your body. You should use their rotation against them, by reversing the direction to which you are leaning. Take a step with your left foot to the position marked "BR" and lean to the left, switching your sword to the right side of your body to block their sword out. Stab them.
• If you wish to move to the left, step your front foot forward to the position marked "1L". As above, you should adopt a guard.
• Take a step with your left foot to the position marked "2L". You should lift your tip as above, but here you will be leaning left rather than right as described above.
• As above, note as soon as possible which side of your sword they end up on.
• If your opponent's sword ends up to the right of your sword, continue leaning left and step with your right foot to the position marked "AL". Stab them, maintaining the gaining of their blade.
• If your opponent's sword ends up to the left of your sword, that means they are following your body and you should use that against them. Lean right and step with your right foot to the position marked "BL". Move your sword to the left side of your body to protect yourself even more and stab them.

Some additional notes:

• This seems to work best for me when my blade is shorter than my opponent's blade.
• When using this with single against case, life is more difficult. I find myself using my off-hand quite a bit. Additionally, I find myself not switching my blade to the other side of my body on the steps to "BR" and "BL", relying on my voiding lean and my off-hand to defend myself. The step to "BL" is particularly difficult, and sometimes I do find myself switching the side of my body that my blade is on, relying solely on my off-hand to defend myself against their case blade.
• I find myself stepping toward whichever blade is in more of an "Italian" hilt-low, tip-high position. I wonder if this is necessary. It seems to work best.
• I also have had trouble when my opponent keeps more of a parallel-to-the-ground guard. I suppose that the Fabris solution here would be to go under their tip while applying opposition with my sword.

That's that. I want to continue trying this rule against case fighters. It seems to work acceptably, though I do wonder if it's just the fact that I am willing to put more quickness into my movement which is gaining me victory. I also wonder how this would go against a case fighter who wanted to be more aggressive than the ones I have been working against.

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I also worked with keeping my hilt at the same height as my opponent's hilt. It was interesting.

The idea behind this is vaguely Spanish-inspired. In theory, if my sword is at the same height as theirs, then I should be able to counter any motion of the wrist with one of my own. Similarly, I should be able to counter any motion of the hand by making one of my own.

What do I mean by this? Well, let me explain.

The Spanish have the idea of "breaking symmetry". That is, you and your opponent will have the same stance until one or the other of you "breaks symmetry" in a way that ideally gives you an advantage. This means positioning your sword to the left, right, above, or below your opponent's sword, perhaps with some sort of a push.

It is certainly the case that being above or below your opponent's sword can create opportunities for you to attack. If your hilt is significantly lower than your opponent's hilt, you might be able to thrust in at their gut in a way that denies them the opportunity to parry with the strong of their blade. 

Similarly, moving your hilt above theirs creates an opportunity to strike them such that geometry denies them the opportunity to parry with the strong of their blade before you touch them. This is the idea behind thrusting in Prima in the Italian school - unless they physically move backwards, they cannot apply their strong to your weak.

Keeping my hilt at the same height as theirs makes it much easier to deny them these opportunities to break symmetry. Especially against people who throw sniping shots, it means that I can foil these attacks with a quick motion of my wrist, and perhaps a small movement of my hand. Essentially, it is a compromise that allows me to be ready for everything.

Of course, this only applies at long measure. When we get to short measure, all of these assumptions go out the window because you don't have time to react any more. This creates a flowchart something like this:

• Maintain hilt at the same height as theirs in misura larga.
• Somehow establish an advantage.
• Immediately move into misura stretta, breaking symmetry.
• Lift hand, lower hand, something.
• Stab them using the advantage created by broken symmetry.

There are a number of other assumptions to question here, about how to make this work. For example, perhaps the height shouldn't be dictated by the distance from the ground. Perhaps it should be dictated by the line between your shoulder and their shoulder, since one or the other of you might be larger, and thus have more target area to defend. And do you really want to go completely down toward the ground if your opponent does?

I personally think that you shouldn't move your hilt beyond your presence, but that is just my current intuition. We'll see.

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Things I want to work on:

• Fabris Rule for Single Rapier #5, in which you aim your tip at their hilt, and then bend your arm at the elbow as you enter long measure, in order to create an advantageous crossing of blades.
• More thought about the things outlined in this post.

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YAY SWORDS.

Practice Yesterday, With Video!

Practice yesterday was good. I authorized someone, and I attempted to use the new hilt-sweep-thrust thing that I described in a previous post. It worked okay. Then I started using the alternate versions of it, and those worked great.

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I did an exercise in which myself and my opponent fought without stopping or calling shots. It was interesting. It allowed for both of us to practice redoubling, even if our shot was pretty clearly successful. This is a good thing, because frequently there will be shots which look clear, but aren't good. Whether it's sleeve, or it looks like arm but is shoulder, or it's something else, double-tapping until they say "dead" is a good habit to get into.

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I also had a conversation in which I clarified the technique I described a few posts ago. I sometimes don't put terribly much effort into writing clearly, but it was interesting to see opinions of the technique. It certainly does seem Spanish-ish, but I'm unsure that there's any documentation that specifies exactly what I have been doing. It is possibly similar to Viedma's High General, comprised of Narrowing and Weak Above Strong, but it's done with the false edge, rather than the true edge.

Oh well. I'll give it more thought. I should probably review Spanish more.

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The fights which occupied most of my brain-cycles were myself with a short blade versus Aiden with two mid-size blades. He and I have been fighting this fight quite a bit - he has been working on his case game, and I have been trying to work out ways to beat case with single rapier, when you can't just out-range your opponent.

Here is some video from about a month ago:

In that video, I primarily try to Destreza at Aiden. We complete two points, and then we take a long-ish time to do a third.

Here is video from yesterday:

At the beginning I was trying to catch his blade with the New Thing, and this decidedly doesn't work due to his blade positioning. After about 2:40 or so, I started using more Fabris-ish stuff. After about 4:40, I started doing the thing correctly.

That is, using Fabris's Rules for Single, in particular the 3rd in which I don't adopt a guard until I'm in the process of stepping into Misura Larga, and the 4th in which I keep my sword below his until I take an offline step and take his sword from the outside. You will note me positioning my feet such that I can take a step to the left or to the right as I approach, by sometimes switching to have my left foot forward. This is to step toward the sword of his that is up, rather than the one which is down.

As a side-note, I wonder if I could step toward the sword which is low, if I took it from above? A thing to think about.

Monday, I was able to catch him with quick lashes inward of speed, but I guess I didn't see that as an option yesterday? As well, I have previously used Fabris's 5th and 6th rules with effectiveness, but I didn't do that yesterday and I'm not sure why. I think he has improved at counter-thrusting under my sword with his other sword, which would preclude usage of the 5th and 6th rules for single.

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For next Monday, I want to:

• Continue working single 37".
• Work on Tournament Brain, with emphasis on visualizing myself at Champs as a high-pressure situation.

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Anyhow, that's all I've got for now. Sword well!

Practice Yesterday, and Analytics!

Yesterday was a good practice. I spent the day thinking I wasn't going to go because my shin had been bothering me, and because it looked like it was going to thunderstorm. But it didn't! And using a bicycle inner-tube to force my hamstring to stretch actually helped my shin a bunch. Thanks, internet!

So as usual, I collected heart rate data using my fitbit. I fought six different people - first two fights were outside, then the next few were inside.

It's hard to draw straight lines on a phone screen

My first fight was against a shorter, long-time OGR. Those fights were really good. I did not ramp up my speed to 100%, which forced me to focus more on technique. I was trying to fight in a Destreza-ish way and also use the invitation I described last post, which didn't work super well due to how far below me her sword was. Short people with long swords continue to present a problem, especially when my sword is shorter than theirs.

My next set of fights was short single against case. It was a very mobile fight, and it looks like we paused in the middle of the fights for whatever reason. I had to use my mobility to force him to commit one sword, then use my sword to take the other one. Alternately, I had to push his swords together. Alternately, I had to use timing and burst down the center line super-fast. This continues to be an illuminating fight. I also continue to have more success being Fabris-ish against case with single, than being Destreza-ish. I tried to use the invitation thing as a multi-step process to get both of his swords, but it didn't work so well, partly because I have to think to set up the invitation.

My next set was against someone who had been fighting for a year. It went well - he kept surprising me by catching parries when we were in in-fighting range. After a bit, my invitation with my blade to the left stopped working, so I had to change the invitation such that my blade was to the right.

My next set was against a fighter who continually pushes my game to improve. I brought my standard long rapier and dagger against him. You will note that this set and the previous set were the ones where my heart rate peaked. After a certain point I was just exhausted - I couldn't cool off fast enough. I did some cool things with the mirrored invitation with blade to the right, but I think they worked well largely because he expected me to disengage and generally deny blade contact more. I feel like he took more passes than I did, and his game was pretty on-point.

My second-to-last set of fights was against an extremely skilled case fighter. He kept catching me on things that I have been able to deal with in the past, but my brain just wasn't in the fight because it was so ridiculously hot. Very good on him for that. He acknowledged that I seemed tired, and the fact that I couldn't get my heart rate to peak is probably physical evidence of that. So basically, I fought him with my dumb game and didn't use any of my cool new things, and he roflstomped me. I also tried to use mobility to neutralize one of his swords, and it just didn't work.

Plate on the left

My last set of fights was against another extremely skilled case fighter. He also roflstomped me, but I used the guard from Fabris plate 168 against him. Again I tried to use mobility to neutralize a sword, but I couldn't get it to work. I will be trying the mobility thing again against both my last and second-to-last opponent, when I am less tired and overheating. The guard seemed to work relatively well though - I would move in and explode my sword and dagger outwards, hopefully catching one of his swords with each of my instruments. It became a game in which either he was able to counter-punch me, or I was able to catch his swords. I think I need to be even more aggressive about moving forward, and I need to be willing to get into dagger range and dagger-lunge skilled case fighters. He certainly took more passes than I did, but I feel like I have a direction to move, learning-wise.

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It looks worse in person. But it doesn't hurt! So that's nice.

I apparently also took a super hard shot to my hand. After practice I noticed that on my glove and hand. I didn't notice anything super hard, but the nasty bruise on my knuckle and the blown-through kevlar on my glove say otherwise. I now believe that those gloves were worth every penny I paid for them, because that would be way worse if I had not had semi-rigid protection on my knuckles.

That's all I've got for the moment. Tune in next time, for more of the violence-things!

A Single-Tempo Hilt-Based Parry-Riposte

Today, I write about a couple of new and interesting modes of blade opposition involving heavy quillon usage. I got the idea from this by browsing a plate of Fabris, and from something I saw in a video of Ton Puey fighting, though for the life of me I can't find it again.

Plate 38, on the left

My copy of Leoni's Fabris translation is currently unavailable to me, so we go with guesswork and what-I-have-been-doing-recently.

The general idea is to create an invitation, and then, using your blade to limit where theirs can go, you take their blade by applying your quillon to it and thrust over their blade, between their blade and their arm. This invitation is made most effective by limiting your target area - that is to say, you know that there is only a certain area on your body that your opponent can hit, from various distances.

The invitation you create should cover all of those places, and then as you enter measure, you execute your thrust, walking forward with intent. Ideally, your positioning will allow you defend yourself regardless of whether or not they thrust, and if they do then you have stronger positioning by virtue of the fact that you are taking their blade with your quillon. So you want them to go for the thrust, and you are limiting the time in which they can perform the thrust, but even if they don't then it's not fatal.

This technique should be most effective when you have a weapon shorter than your opponent's weapon. And lastly, this technique should be able to be mirrored horizontally for usage against left-handed people, and mirrored vertically for use against people who want their blade below yours.

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The Technique

• Begin by placing your hilt in a position below their tip, and your tip in a position above their tip. Your blade should be to the left of theirs, but your positioning should force them to thrust above your blade if they wish to hit you.
• Additionally, this space through which they must thrust should be the space that you will be "sweeping" with your top quillon.
• Your quillon should be approaching parallel to the ground, with your fingernails up.
• Move forwards, such that you enter the "danger zone" in which your opponent can reach you, and are in the process of exiting the "danger zone" such that you are too close for your opponent's sword's tip to effectively touch you.
• Raise your hand at the same time you bend your wrist to lower your tip. Your false edge should touch their sword, but the true push should come from your top quillon pushing their sword upwards. You might have to move your hand left somewhat as you raise it, in order to gain the appropriate positioning.
• Your tip might end up lower than your hilt. This is a good thing.
• At this point, you should be stabbing your opponent, with their sword completely blocked-off. Good job.

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This technique seems applicable to both Italian and Spanish fencing. For the Spanish, the angle would be shallower, but it would be an effective counter to an opponent attempting to attack with detachment via Weak over Strong. The other versions of this, which I alluded to earlier, would also be useful here.

Additionally, it seems like you could use the principles here as yet another tool in the single-versus-case game, using this as a single-tempo parry/riposte against the front sword.

The advantage of this technique is that it works slightly better if your opponent does nothing. As well, it is much harder for your opponent to regain strength, since your tip is angled downwards. The disadvantage is that it requires you to anticipate your opponent's action, and doesn't branch naturally from parrying.

This is an interesting technique, because it emphasizes knowledge of measure and anticipation of action. After all, if your opponent doesn't thrust, then you will still be blocking them out with your hilt.

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My left shin is unhappy, so I won't be using this as effectively tonight as I would normally. I will likely be fighting primarily Spanish, since that involves less shock on my lower legs, even if my footwork gets sloppy.

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Anyhow, that's all for the moment. Have fun!

Relating Italian Tempo and Spanish Distance

This post has been sitting in my "Drafts" queue at ~90% completion for a few months. I was inspired to complete it after a post that Doroga made. I have been a bit hesitant to post it, because anything that references Real Numbers is fodder to be disproven by other people. So, take all of this with a grain of salt, and if your numbers end up different from mine, just relax.

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Today, we have a post about tempo, inspired in part by my conversations with Doroga in which we talked about how the Spanish don't really use an idea of tempo, as the Italians do. The Spanish tend to worry more about distance and the appropriate place to do things. Tempo and distance are both important, and both the Spanish and the Italians neglect each other's favorite concepts.

Assuming two identical opponents, it is perfectly acceptable to understand one but not the other. But in modern SCA rapier, we have wide variations in blade type, blade length, and size of humans. I would guess that variation in matchups is much more likely to happen in modern SCA rapier than it would historically, and even in other HEMA-related disciplines. It is to this end that I wish to bring the Italian concept of "tempo" and the Spanish concept of "distance" down to earth.

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On tempo, Capoferro has the following to say on part 50 of his text, in chapter 5 (Leoni's translation):

The narrowest measure requires instead an extra-quick tempo, since even the smallest motion I make with my sword and the shortest stillness of my opponent would be enough for me to reach my design while in this measure; this extra-short tempo is therefore called a half-tempo. The tempo required to strike from the less narrow measure that we would call narrow measure of firm foot is a whole tempo; lastly, the tempo required to strike from the wide measure (which requires [a lunge]) is a whole tempo and a half.

Both before and after this passage, Capoferro speaks as most Italians do about how tempo is the measure of stillness and motion, and how my opponent's stillness corresponds to my motion, and vice versa. All of the Italian masters I have read, when they talk about tempo, speak in those terms. Essentially, it sounds like you and your opponent are taking turns. Why would this be?

Capoferro Plate 11, From Wiktenauer

Humans have a limited reaction speed. ~180ms, or ~1/5 of a second. If you want to perform an action, and be sure it has succeeded, you have to do the thing, then wait for your perceptions to catch up to your movements. This is the way you must act, in order to successfully act, perceive what your opponent has done, and then respond to their action.

This makes sense for the Italians. All of their plates talk about performing an action, and then responding to your opponent's action.

Armed with this knowledge, I took to my swording-dummy and attempted to use Capoferro's definitions of tempo. I have found, from personal experience, that I can lash out my arm to strike an uncovered hand or forearm in about 1/10 of a second. Similarly, a thrust with a lean takes about 1/5 of a second, and a full lunge requires about 3/10 of a second.

This also explains why, against a trained and ready fencer, a full lunge from maximum measure is useless - they can begin their parry after 1/5 of a second, which is enough time for them to disrupt a lunging thrust.

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As for distance, the Spanish have a circle. It's supposedly magical and occult and all of that fun stuff. The particular circle I favor is Viedma's.

From the translation of Díaz de Viedma, Luis. Método de Enseñanza de Maestros [Method of Teaching of Masters]. 1639

Available here.

Viedma provides explicit measurement of the circle, but neglects to tell us exactly how long our sword should be for it. I tend to be more of the Thibault school of things, in which I think all things should be relative. So, Viedma provides us with two measurements - that the circle should be 24 feet around (or ~7.6 feet across, using geometry) and that from point C, you should be able to just stab them with your tip. (For reference, see the Blow of Perfect Attack to the Face, page 22r.) As such, we can calculate that from point C to your opponent should be ~64 to ~67 inches. This means that Viedma is assuming that your sword plus the distance from your spine to your arm will be about that. With my 37" rapier, I hit 68 inches, so that's a bit more than intended by him.

He additionally gives the distance of  a circular step from A to B as 3 feet. Geometry says it's more like 2.9 feet in a straight line, but close enough. That's about how far my foot goes in standard lunge without trying to force it to go farther. This means it probably takes about 1.5 tempi to go that far from neutral, and then another 1.5 tempi to recover after the long step.

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As an aside, I tend to prefer the Thibault philosophy of calculating according to the proportions of the fencer. If I wanted to change the size of the circle, I would take the measurement from spine to tip as the measurement. Then, I would see if the fencer in question could take the appropriate -length step from A to B in the 1.5 tempi of the lunge, possibly widening my stance so that I can cover more ground. If so, great! If not, maybe it's time to use a shorter sword for doing Viedma's thing.

As an aside - using the above method to calculate blade length *does* come up with a correct length, according to Thibault's techniques and ways of moving, which differ subtly from Viedma. For more on historical blade length, see my friend Doroga's post on the subject, and my previous post about daggers.

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So, with that vast bushel of assumptions, we do a number of things. We can see that in the process of stepping, you should be able to perform ~3 single-tempo "actions" with your sword as you move around the circle, from point to point. A step you don't complete contains 1.5 single-tempo "actions", all of which can be defined in terms of Italian "taking the blade", "disengage", "thrust", and so on.

Similarly, one could take different types of steps according to tempo. An Italian non-lunge step takes about one tempo out, and one tempo to recover. Fabris and Capoferro both reference taking even smaller steps as well, though Fabris thinks that this is a poor choice. But, considering that type of stepping, we can decide what we wish to do with our blades, and then calculate what we can commit to with our feet at the same time.

If I were more motivated, one could develop this into a board game, in which people decide what they are doing, then reveal what they did with their previous action, then decide what they are doing with their next action. This would represent the sliding window of reaction-time, in which you are never reacting to exactly what your opponent is doing at this exact moment - you're only reacting to what they did one tempo ago.

If I were even more motivated, I would develop this into a computer game, in which a computer maps out the best option from each location as defined by these equivalencies and the available actions.

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This is, obviously, not the whole story. You can physically move your hand more with a lighter weapon, which means you can perform more blade actions. As well, the body mechanics of different humans will change things - smaller humans can get smaller angles, whereas bigger humans can reach longer angles. But this is the way of the Lupold - over-analyze data from a historical source, and then see if the over-analysis yields any useful conclusions.

Thus far, these equivalencies seem to hold up acceptably. I've been working Fabris, so they are not fresh in my mind, but I might return to them for a bit, to see how things go. There is a post on blade actions mid-step, which would include a brief section on Fabris's forward-movement and sideways-movement with intent. Perhaps I will even write it one day.

Additionally, "tempo" is a term which is not used for a consistent measurement in period sources. Fabris refers to "long tempo" and "short tempo", and I believe the Spanish talk about tempo as not a discrete thing, but as a progressive thing.

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As a summary of this post, with some additional bits that seem correct filled in for good measure:

• A lunge or lunging step is equivalent to 1.5 tempi.
• Recovering from a lunge, forward or backwards, is about equivalent to 1.5 tempi.
• A regular step is equivalent to 1 tempo, and covers half of the space of a lunge
• Similarly, recovering to neutral occupies an additional tempo.
• A tiny step can be taken, occupying .5 tempo in movement and .5 tempo in recovery.
• Longer steps are possible, trading further commitment for further distance, to a point.
• A "blade action" tends to take 1 tempo.
• It takes 1 tempo to react, which means you are always reacting to what your opponent did 1 tempo ago.
• This means that any fully offensive action that takes more than 1 tempo can be defended against.
• Unless you do a tricky thing, like attack when your opponent is distracted or perform a disengage.

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Have a good day, and fence well.