Why should you listen to me? I'm a fencer who has put a lot of time and effort into this subject. I have fenced using reach for a long time, so I have had a lot of time to characterize the ways that one can use reach to win bouts. At the same time, I have a number of friends who are effective shorter-blade fencers, who know how to turn my reach against me. Lastly, I am just short enough that I can't just out-reach everybody.
Some background. I've done well for a long time with my 45" rapier. Using reach comes naturally to me, not just because of my stature but because of the tactics that long reach implies. Over time, though, I grew to worry that I only was winning because I could snipe my opponents. And indeed, I performed terribly against those who out-reached me. I came to realize that there were flaws in my understanding of rapier, so I needed to take up a shorter sword in order to understand things better. Over time, my journey has led me through the Spanish and Italian arts, in order to gain a better understanding of the short-versus-long inequality, and swordplay as a whole.
This class, we will cover several topics.
- Why is reach effective?
- How does reach win?
- How can reach stab you?
- How must you stab reach?
- What advantages does reach have?
- How do you minimize them?
- Specific techniques.
- Why is reach effective?
- Less "cognitive effort"
- Frequently no need for defense.
- Less pressure to have "good technique".
- What tactics does reach use?
- "Threat Zones"
- Keep shorter person in their "threat zone" as long as possible.
- Drifting backwards slowly.
- Demonstrate how cuts from reach are really not that great.
- Timing
- A full lunge will be parried.
- Demonstration.
- Need to either distract or attack using a demi-lunge.
- Feints from out of measure
- Allows for less "plausible" feints.
- Feint goes "tink", makes people twitch faster than they see.
- Discussion of tempo and reaction times.
- How can reach stab you?
- Better question: How do you parry reach, and how does reach overcome those parries.
- The Three Principles
- Disengage
- Over the tip / under the tip
- Pull out
- Yield around
- In order to parry, your parries need to strongly defend against all of these.
- Counters
- Disengage = Width
- Note that "width" only counts if your opponent can't blow right through your sword.
- Pull out = Penetration
- Yield around = Width, but with a focus on rear-width.
- Demonstrate how a Duello-style find-gain-attack uses these principles.
- How must you stab reach?
- Good defense.
- Good offense.
- Get through Danger Zone.
- How can you minimize reach's advantages?
- Getting low, going for the gut.
- Demonstrate how getting low steals reach away and gives it to you.
- Profiling
- Vertical - Fabris
- Horizontal - Destreza
- Straight approach
- Viable if they give you their sword.
- Angled approach
- Viable if they do not give you their sword.
- Use your own body's advantages
- If you don't have reach, you are probably smaller.
- This means voids are good.
- Put sword on "one side" of your body.
- Left / Right - Destreza
- Up / Left / Right - Fabris.
- Blade actions that take a long time to escape
- Transports.
- Get blade contact.
- Threaten the hand while not giving good opposition.
- Specific techniques.
- Fabris stance.
- Fabris rule 1 flowchart.
- Refusing body behind hilt / blade
- Extended arm giving penetration, allowing focus on width.
- Demonstrate again how getting low steals reach from your opponent.
- Destreza stance.
- Thibault plate 29 (?), circle 10.
- Body positioning giving an angle that "hides" you behind your sword.
- Covering the "danger zone" before they can react, then circling.
- Note how this prevents forcing a 50/50 disengage.
- Transports
- Standard Giganti stance.
- Demonstrate transport below, above.
- Cover w/ quillon, reinforce with dagger.
- Demonstrate transport left / right
- Demonstrate that transports can actually happen anywhere
- Single / duo-tempi parry-riposte
- Favored by lighter blades / more back-weighted blades.
- Capo Ferro hierarchy.
- Zing-cuts
- Favored by heavier blades / more front-weighted blades.
- Show how this forces particular, predictable motion
- Show how you can use this motion to force further blade actions.
- Sentiment
- Oh god sentiment.
- Long discussion on tempo and sentiment
- Show how pressure makes blades "sticky"
- Show how this allows you to predict where your opponent can go.
- Closing
- Fabris stance is great and versatile, but hard to do.
- Destreza stance is good and easy to stand in, but removes off-hand items from the bout.
- Reach is effective and faster. (Dark side???) But not stronger.
Edit: This is two classes' worth of material, I'm pretty sure. First class would be theory, second class would be techniques.
