Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium

Vancouver was great!

First up - here's a video of the exhibition match between the Italian Rapier teacher and the Thibault Rapier teacher.

I took several classes. In no particular order:

*****

Italian Rapier was fun. I didn't learn much new stuff from it, but I gained some meta-knowledge. I now know the proper way to run a class like that.

I think that having two instructors, with one playing the assist-and-fill-in-blanks role, is the ideal way to teach. Also, if there is a drill, explicitly tell people to line up on either side, call out when people should switch partners, and call out when people should rotate.

Make sure that every single bit is called out and practiced. Separate out the footwork from the blade-and-arm work, and perhaps even the body-work, and have people drill each part. Assuming that you break things down into small enough parts, it should actually be pretty possible to figure out exactly how long it will take to cover things.

I did gain a bit of technique-insight. For example, if your opponent is taller than you, you will tend to rotate more toward prima than you otherwise might. But again, most of what I learned was stuff I already knew.

I skipped out on the second day, because I wanted to wander Vancouver. I regret it slightly, but not that much.

*****

German versus Italian Rapier was interesting. The class compared two actions, in the Italian sidesword school, and the German rappier tradition. The two are very similar.

The action for the German school was a transition from Right Ochs through Longpoint, into Left Ochs, with a step, and then the strikes that could come from there. It was interesting to see how Left Ochs is basically "fifth" guard, if we consider the logical rotation of first into second, into third, into fourth, and then into fifth. It also only really works if you are completely profiled, and your elbow is bent a bit.

This transition had several sequences, depending on what your opponent did and where your sword made contact with theirs. The first was "threading behind" theirs with your false, and picking their blade up with your quillons. The second was a disengage to the other side, with a false-edge cut to the back of their blade and a true-edge cut to their head. It was interesting, and made me appreciate German Rapier more.

The Italian sequence was from a low-right Iron Gate through Longpoint, into a low-left Iron Gate. We didn't have much time by that point, but the argument there was that those sequences were essentially the same thing, except that the German sequence was optimized against cuts, and the Italian one was optimized against thrusts.

There was a fascinating digression about german footwork - apparently in Meyer's first draft, he has a long section on footwork. There is apparently a crescent moon shape in one of his plates which shows off all of the ways that you can step, but the finished version only has about a paragraph on footwork. So, at some point I'm going to go mining for that image, and for the original manuscript's section on footwork.

*****

I got SO MUCH out of the Thibault class. My prior experience with Destreza certainly helped with this. I liked the Italian class's pedagogy more, but the Thibault class had so much information for me to absorb. It was also a huge class, and I think that things were made much more difficult for the instructor because of it.

Things I got out of that class:

• Smaller steps are good, so you can abort the action appropriately if needed (?!?)
• I am not sure I believe this? Reaction times would dictate that it is hard to step appropriately and immediately.
• The instructor held his sword in a looser grip than I would have expected, from briefly reading the manual.
• Rotating from the hips/chest frees your arm to act in the opposite direction. So, when finding and gaining the blade, I should do it from my core and lower body, keeping my upper body still. That way, if they disengage, I can instantly move my shoulder and elbow to parry.
• Movements of conclusion are great, and essentially an arm bar on your opponent's sword.
• A stretch is just a joint lock performed nicely. Conversely, a joint lock is a stretch performed with vigor.
• If your opponent has more reach than you, do a cross step such that your back foot is in front, and then take the step that you would have taken if your front foot had been in front, in order to close distance.
• The "right angle" means that your arm is level with your shoulders. If you want to aim at a shorter opponent, tilt from the shoulders. There should be a straight line from your left shoulder, through your right shoulder, into your hand. If you want to aim at a taller opponent, tilt upwards.
• Keep your tip and hilt closer to the diameter (shortest line between you and your opponent) than your opponent's sword. Just a bit closer though, such that you have more strength, but they can't suddenly lunge for a low target.
• Against Italians or people with secondary offensive implements, pre-queue an atajo and then circle toward whatever side has less reach.
• Against lunges to the low line, toss that thigh back, punch downwards with your hilt to block their blade, and then stab them in the face.
• If your blade is longer than theirs, keep yours high so that they can't catch your weak, then drop down when you approach close enough that you can take their weak.
• To drop your tip in the Thibault grip, rotate your palm up. To raise it, rotate your palm down. This creates excellent structure for providing opposition and excellent positioning of quillons. Super strong. So very, very strong.
• There is apparently a second Thibault grip for cuts, that one should be able to transition into from the default quillons-flat, index-finger-under-the-flat-of-the-ricasso grip. It involves closing your hand more, but I haven't been able to pull it off. This grip-change, combined with the horizontal-quillon hand-posture, is the reason Thibault's swords do not have a knucklebow.
• If you have both strength and blade contact, you should step toward their sword. If you are without either or both of those, you should step away from their sword.
• Don't over-angulate your blade outwards, as this makes it hard to strike and hard to foil a disengage.
• Thibault does not do Weak Under Strong.
• It seemed like the instructor agreed with most of my definitions of Destreza things.
• Parallax is still important.

We discussed a couple of definitions.

First Instance is the location at which you can stab them with a step and a lean. Second Instance is where you can stab them with a lean. Third Instance is where you can stab them with barely any movement, by extending your arm. It wasn't explicitly stated, but thrusts come from first instance, cuts from second, and movements of conclusion from third.

Enlivening the foot is the process of pushing downwards with one foot to free the other to move freely. This is the primary way Thibault advises one to take steps.

Springing Steps are steps in which you take a conservative step, note that your opponent is moving backwards, and then drop into a demi-lunge. Your foot should tap the ground at the end of the conservative step. It essentially lets you move two steps' distance.

Power Slopes are a concept that the teacher used to express how opposition should work. Essentially, you should create a slope that, by its nature, forces your opponent's sword to slide down your blade and onto your hilt if they try to strike you.

Sentiment is the feeling of how strongly your opponent is committed to a bind. I will refer to this as "oppose strongly", "oppose mediumly", "present no opposition but don't move from the bind", and "disengage". Alternately, "strong sentiment", "medium sentiment", "no sentiment", and "disengage". My instincts say that you can increase strength without increasing sentiment by increasing the angulation of your sword, as per Fabris.

There was one primary sequence we worked through. It was something like this.

• Rotate to palm-down in order to raise your tip, enliven your back foot, and then rotate from your hips/legs/core (NOT ARMS) to apply an atajo, while stepping toward the direction that their sword is from your sword.
• If they oppose strongly,
• Raise your tip more to increase angluation and thus strength, dropping your hilt a bit as well, while stepping through with your back foot to put your left hand forward. Perform a movement of conclusion by grabbing their hilt/blade, pushing on their blade with your hilt, and essentially performing an arm bar on their sword.
• If you had enough strength to start with, you should be able to feel them pushing against you, and act accordingly.
• I want work on my ability to perform a thrust out of this
• If they oppose mediumly,
• Step toward their sword again, lowering your hilt and tip such that their blade is trapped between your quillon and blade. Stab them in the sword-side flank.
• If they present no opposition, but don't move from the bind
• They could either push suddenly or disengage. This is dangerous.
• Perform a cutting glide, aiming your cut for about 6 inches to the outside of their hilt, across their blade. Performed correctly, this will expel their blade, and make your blade "spring up", stabbing them in the face.
• There is some excitement to this technique. Remember that you want to rotate your sword such that your strike point is always touching their sword, as per my post on strike points.
• If they disengage
• Take a second step toward where their sword was, which is now a step away from their sword. Bend at the shoulder and elbow such that your arm stays at the same location in space, but moves backwards and toward their blade's new position relative to your body. Angle your wrist toward their blade, so you are covered. Proceed to attack from there.

There was also a segment on dealing with Italians, and dealing with sword-and-dagger. I have already covered the former. For the latter, you are to circle toward their dagger-side, trying to keep your weapon between their two weapons and angled as stated is proper against Italians. If they try to take your sword with their sword, proceed as if they had opposed you strongly, performing a thrust (?) and moving out in the direction of their dagger side. If they try to take your sword with their dagger, disengage to the outside around their dagger and stab them in the dagger-side flank.

There was also a Thibault versus Italians class, which was interesting. I have covered most of the items I got from that class in the first bullet-point section. I skipped out on Thibault Against The World, which makes me a bit sad, but oh well.

*****

Lastly, there were the Physical Asymmetries and Tactical Asymmetries classes. During the classes, I felt like I was getting a lot from them, but thinking back, a lot of the pieces of the class made me feel weird. The tl;dr version is that shorter people are required to bait taller people into making the first move using distance, then counter-punch or parry-riposte. Taller people are required to bait shorter people into biting on a parry early, then disengage or otherwise attack.

It resolved into a long rock-paper-scissors game.

1. Tall person and short person attack at the same time. Tall person wins.
2. Short person waits for tall person's attack and parry/ripostes. Short person wins.
3. Tall person feints, short person parries, tall person disengages and thrusts. Tall person wins.
4. Short person anticipates the feint, attacks through it to choke the disengage. Short person wins.
5. Short person anticipates the feint. Tall person throws a sincere attack. Tall person wins.

So, with T meaning "Tall" and S meaning "Short", with the winner marked in the individual cells:

	T full intent thrust	T feint/thrust
S full intent thrust	T	S
S parry/riposte	S	T

Note that S feint and T parry are not listed at all, because in that particular fight it doesn't make sense.

I disagreed with this conclusion somewhat. It simplifies things in a way, but I tend more toward the Destreza-esque opinion that there is a correct choice in all circumstances, or at least a choice that will make you not get stabbed. Envelops and suchlike fit in here.

For Tactical Asymmetries, we discussed two-by-two properties of fencers. The properties were:

Approaching or Receiving, which describes whether somebody prefers to move forward or to stay still and respond to their opponent's actions.

Attacker or Defender, which describes whether someone wants to perform feints to open up an opponent for attacks, or if they want to go in for defensive blade contact.

We had historical examples of some of these, of which Fabris was presented as the approaching attacker. The main thing I got out of this class was the idea of slow-working as a different style of fencer. I also had a long conversation with Sorcha about our types - I tend to be more of a Receiving Attacker, whereas she tends to be more of an Approaching Defender. This makes sense, given the fact that I have much more reach than her, with my chosen weapon. At the same time, she is much faster to defend herself.

Basically, it means that both of us are playing at "level two" of our respective games.

Huh.

Maybe I do agree with it a little bit more, then.

*****

I also attempted to apply all of this at practice, after cutting the knuckle-bow off of a spare hilt I had lying around. I'm not sure it actually made a difference, especially given that I do SCA fencing, and so there's a lot of focus on the thrust. I actually had more success doing Thibault better with a shorter weapon, rather than a longer one, because that allowed me to thrust at closer range. Also, having a dagger as an alternative to movements of conclusion was nice. I still want a 26-inch sail dagger for Destreza purposes, but the claws on my standard dagger were nice for grabbing onto swords as well.

*****

Aside from that it was beautiful, I had fun going there with all the people who were there, I sabered a bottle of champagne at the gala, and all the food was really tasty.

I hope this was useful.