Re-Hash

Today will consist of a re-hash of things which I already know.

I want to review my Fabris. This involves going through this post. In terms of Principle 1, I think that Fabris wants you to always go toward the outside line. That's the only way it makes sense, without further context. I also want to apply Principles 3, 5, and 6, which should be relatively straightforward and should work together relatively nicely.

I want to maintain a the idea of "keeping someone out of your presence" in terms of an ellipse. That is to say, everything is fine, as long as you keep their ability-to-stab outside of the ellipse which is the silhouette of your head-and-torso.

Lastly, I have a weird combination-idea that I want to try. It occurs to me that there are two "types" of guards, based on the curvature of your arm. There are "straight" guards and there are "curved" guards. in "curved" guards, your arm-sword-aggregate leaves, then crosses back over the shortest line from your shoulder to your opponent. In "straight" guards, your arm either is along this line, or strays from the line but doesn't re-cross it.

An important note is that an opponent's guard can change between "curved" and "straight" based solely on your movement, without your opponent moving their arm at all.

It seems, at a glance, like for "straight" guards, you generally want to step "away" from their tip, trying to strike them as in Destreza when you thrust to the flank while stepping around, without taking a strong atajo. These are the things I have called "weak" attacks in the past.

For "curved" guards, it seems like one would want to "bar" their tip such that your sword prevents their sword from regaining the shortest-line-from-shoulder-to-you. So you put your sword, perhaps even completely horizontally, between their tip and that shortest-line. Then, you do something like Fabris Principle 6 and maintain that defense, rotating your body to allow your tip to become at liberty and attack them.

It's possible that the stuff from this post would be more relevant, in this regard, but I fear their ability to perform a wide disengage around my sword.

Of course, in the case where your movement changes what "relative curvature" of guard they have, you would need to switch tactics in the middle.

It's a work in progress.

And it makes sense to me.

Let's see if it helps me sword better with my 37" rapier.