I was arbitrarily depressed for no good reason, and then a bunch of bullshit news broke, which pushed buttons. So, I'mma talk swords for a while, because that's a good coping mechanism.
Some destreza insights came to me a bit over a week ago, and they've revolutionized both my Italian and my Spanish game in a way I hadn't thought possible at this point. So that's pretty cool! My brain has been obsessing over them since, trying to figure out exact boundaries of how things work and where they're applicable.
This is mostly a simplified version of stuff I already knew. But it's simplified to the bare bones. I realize that this doesn't look short, but as far as I'm concerned this should be all you need to know in order to fence. I know I'll be proven wrong, and that's fine, but it's a nice thought.
I have a more thorough blog post about this in the works, but I don't want to deal with "writing complete thoughts" or "making illustrations" or anything like that. I'm assuming a right-handed fencer, so change all the rights to lefts and the lefts to rights if you are sinister.
*****
BASIC LEVEL
*****
THEORY
There are five core concepts here.
-POSITIONING: There is a line starting at their hilt and extending along their blade into infinity. Anything which brings your body in a direction that eventually would touch that line is "toward their sword" Anything which brings your body in a direction which would not eventually touch that line is "away from their sword". This can look a lot like stepping "behind" their sword, if you step toward their forearm behind their hilt, but for our purposes this is still "away from". Note that this means I am discarding the circle.
-BODY: Your body should be between your feet, and you should not be twisted in any fashion. If your right foot is in front of your left foot, you should be facing leftwards relative to your opponent. Don't twist your body. If you're putting your back foot forward, rotate your body with it. If you are stepping to the left with your left foot, you should rotate your body clockwise, if viewed from above. If you are stepping to the right with your left foot, you should be rotating your body counterclockwise, such that your back rotates forwards. This is similar to an Italian giarata.
-ACTION: All footwork should be linked to bladework. Footwork "toward their sword" should push their sword upwards or downwards. Footwork "away from their sword" should keep their blade to your left or right. Ideally, you will put their sword into a place such that any direction they can move it will bring it either farther from your body, or press into your sword in a way that they cannot muscle through.
-OPPOSITION: Most actions have an element of pushing their blade, or "opposition". All opposition should be done with the back edge of your blade, in a way that gets your sword "behind their sword". This is in the plane between their forearm and their sword, defined by the angle made at their wrist.
-ATTACKING: Thrusts and chops should be performed at a farther distance, while stepping with your right foot. slicing cuts and cross-body thrusts (including movements of conclusion) should be performed at a closer distance, while stepping with your left foot.
*****
GRIP
You should be grasping your sword generally in one of two ways.
-THRUSTING: The first way has you holding your sword along the handle, with the blade pointing along your index finger. Your pinky and ring finger should be around the handle, your pommel running down the channel of your wrist, your middle finger wrapped around the quillon in front of your blade, your index finger along the side of your ricasso, and your thumb laying on the quillon next to the quillon block on the back side of your blade. You should be able to point your finger at a thing, and have the tip go to a place somewhat similar to where you are pointing.
-CUTTING: The second way has you holding your sword like a hammer, with the blade pointing along your thumb. The blade and grip of your sword should be lying across your palm, roughly from the dip between your index knuckle and the ridge of your thumb, down to the dip between your pinky knuckle and the lump on the wrist-and-pinky side of your hand. Your thumb should be pressing into the back of the ricasso or pulling on the quillon. Your index finger and middle finger should be wrapped around the ricasso, and your ring finger and pinky should be wrapped around the grip. Your tip should go somewhere similar to where you are pointing with your thumb.
You should also be able to transition between these two grips, and adopt various grips in between these two extremes.
*****
STANCE
-A:
For these actions, the proper stance from out of measure should be one
in which your tip is just below their hilt. You should start with your
right foot forward, profiled to your opponent, with your body behind
your hilt. Your arm should be straight, even if this means your shoulder is not at a perfect right angle. The reasons for this should become slightly more obvious as time passes. I also prefer to have my hand angled such that my back quillon is on top and angled to the right, and my front quillon is on the bottom and angled to the left.
*****
TECHNIQUES
If we keep the five pieces of theory in mind, we can distill it into four and a half actions. These actions fully and perfectly defend you from your opponent's sword. If your opponent is moving their sword to a place that is not defended, that is evidence that you should transition from one action to a different one, which will cover the hole created.
-ONE: This is the step "away from" their sword, using your right foot. Here, you put your tip directly above their hilt. It roughly corresponds to "Weak Above Strong". You should be defended by the fact that your opponent's sword will be angled away from you, and they will be forced to cross your hilt if they want to attempt to thrust.
-TWO: This is the step "toward" their sword, using your right foot. It roughly corresponds to "Line in Cross". Here, you push downwards on the middle part of their sword sword using your false edge and flat, with a relatively shallow angle. Here, you are defended by pushing them downwards appropriate to your distance, such that they need to do a large movement to attack directly. This generally forces your opponent to take their sword farther out of the line to attack you. You push more based on how close you are, but as a general thing, your hilt will be about as high up as theirs is, or perhaps a bit below theirs. The angle at the crossing, of the plane between your tips, should be relatively large - something like 135º. This might require pushing their sword left or right a bit before you push down.
-THREE: This is the step "away from" their sword, using your left foot. It, too, roughly corresponds to "Line in Cross" Here, you perform a wide, false-edge cutting motion to pull backwards to the point that your sword is at about 90º to their sword. Your arm should be forming an angle forward from your shoulder such that, if they attempt to yield around, you can pull your arm back a tiny bit and prevent them from reaching your body around your sword. You can push their sword with this, and probably will end up doing so a decent amount.
-FOUR: This is the step "toward" their sword, using your left foot. It doesn't really correspond to anything in destreza, except perhaps for some versions of the "Movement of Conclusion". Here, you are wrapping your false edge around their sword, and then ripping it very far down, out of your presence. You are defended by the fact that their sword is super low, and your sword is blocking the obvious disengage. Your quillon should be defending the direct line to you, and your blade should be holding their sword in the same place. This is a somewhat awkward movement, but it makes it super easy to grab their hilt with your left hand.
-GATHER: This is a gathering step. If you execute One, then you need to perform a gathering step before you can execute a One or a Two. Or, you could just perform a Three or a Four. Basically, you can't step with the same foot twice without a gathering step. You can, however, perform any action which corresponds to the foot you have forward, when you gather.
In general, each of these actions also roughly corresponds to an attack. One to the Thrust, Two to the Chop, Three to the Slicing Cut, and Four to the Conclusion. If the positioning is correct, though, either attack associated with the appropriate foot can be done. They also roughly correspond to distances - One to the farthest distance, and closer and closer until we reach Four. For the gathering step, you can perform any attack associated with the foot which is forward. Lastly, these actions form a rough gradient of grip - One representing the Thrusting grip, Four representing the Cutting grip, and Two and Three somewhere in between.
For the destreza folks out there - yes, this does mean that I'm suggesting transitioning between "Line in Cross" and "Weak Above Strong". This is against Viedma's advice, so we'll see if this ends up being terribly wrong.
tl;dr summary: Right foot forward is smaller defensive actions, left foot forward is bigger defensive actions.
*****
MORE ADVANCED STUFF
This is stuff I am less sure about. Keep in mind that "Advanced" doesn't necessarily mean "better". It just means "things which are applicable in a far smaller list of circumstances".
*****
I lied to you earlier, though. Those top four actions are the "best" actions. There are four more actions which are the "from below" variants of the above. In general, if you are fighting single against single, or you have similar reach to your opponent, you only need the above. Even when fighting single against non-single forms, the above is an excellent start, and should get you very far.
*****
ACTIONS, PART 2
The below four "secondary" actions are useful because they, in general, don't require you to defend as much space. They also allow you to do neat circular bladework by transitioning from one of the first four into one of the last four, which is useful when you need to tie up two swords. They are by and large worse than the first four actions, but there are circumstances where they are necessary. Especially when your opponent has an active off-hand, or an active secondary weapon.
-FIVE: Five corresponds to One. Here, you are putting your tip under their hilt while stepping away from their blade, with your right foot. In general, you should rotate your hand so that your back quillon is pointing to the upper-left if you are stepping around to the outside against another righty. So basically, if you are striking to the top, you should "block off" their line upwards, and if you are striking to the bottom, you should "block off" their line downwards with your quillons. This does mean that on the inside line your direction of quillons is reversed. Basically, your quillon angulation should resemble a diamond around their sword, depending on where you strike.
-SIX: Six corresponds to Two. Here, you are sweeping their sword from under, lightly upwards, with the false edge of your sword. You are stepping towards their blade with your right foot. You should be defended in the same way you are defended with Two - pushing them off-line upwards just enough that they can't stab you in the direct line, so they are required to disengage. The angle between your tips should be similar, though here you don't need to do nearly as much pushing-upwards as you need to do pushing-downwards for Two. The reason for this is that there is much less area for you to be stabbed above your shoulder, when compared to your chest and gut below your shoulder. This means you can be a bit more on-line with this - useful if you are out-ranged by your opponent. If you are not out-ranged, being more on-line with your tip might lead to your opponent gaining a strong opposition or using their off-hand. This would be sad.
-SEVEN: Seven corresponds to Three. Here, you are stepping away from their blade with your left foot, blocking them from attacking you by creating a wide line with the false edge. Your hand should be raised a bit, and your tip should be closer to the ground than your hilt. This is the most different of all of these four - instead of having to cover your entire body, you just have to cover your head and be prepared for this disengage. Similarly to Six, you can have your tip farther forward if your opponent's blade is longer, but caution should be used if your opponent's sword is not longer, because they may gain opposition on you.
-EIGHT: Eight corresponds to Four. Here, you are stepping toward their blade with your left foot, raising their sword upwards. You should be raising their sword with the back-edge quillon and false edge of your blade. If your left foot is to the left of your right foot, your quillon should be to the left of their blade and most of your blade should be to the right. If your left foot is to the right of your right foot, your quillon should be to the right on their blade, and most of your blade to the left of their blade. This seems backwards, but if you have their sword raised above your presence, it is more dangerous for them to disengage in a way that lets them stab you in the chest or gut, rather than in a way that stabs you in the flank. You are less profiled, in the former situation.
*****
ATTACKS, PART TWO
-THE THRUST: Oh, the thrust. There are two primary ways to execute the thrust. One is to thrust over or under their quillons with suitable coverage. One is to thrust over their mid-blade with suitable coverage.
When thrusting over or under their quillons, it is important to cover their blade with your quillons. Ideally, you would simply be thrusting over their quillons and just being done with it. But many times, that will not happen. On the inside line against righties, this is rare. The primary essential part of this is to keep the line from your left shoulder, through your right shoulder, and to your quillons, aimed at their hilt and quillons. You can bend and angulate your wrist as needed, to stab your foe, so long as you maintain appropriate quillon posture. This means that, when circling to the inside against a righty, your back quillon will be pointed mostly upwards, and when circling to the inside against a lefty, you will rotate your hand into something similar to an Italian prima, and your back quillon will point toward the ground.
This might also happen when fighting a righty and circling to the outside, but that is less likely. As well, when circling to the outside against a lefty, your back quillon might end up being vertical, but this is also rare.
When thrusting over the mid-blade, it is important to be sure that your opponent will not be able to angle under or over your sword to stab you. This can be difficult, and can require you to lower your hand to your hip or raise it above your head. This operation is one to be undertaken only when you are sure that the angles will work out. If they do not seem as though they will, abandon this course of action and switch to a Three or a Four instead. Or even a One. Anything else, really.
*****
STANCES, PART TWO
-STANCE B: This is a stance for when either your opponent has much more reach than you, or you do not have faith in your ability to stab them except for as a counter-attack. The theory of this stance is somewhat simple - you create an invitation and execute a parry that cannot reasonably be gotten around. This is executed thus - with your left foot forward and to the left, lower and bring your right arm across your chest, such that your right hand is near your left hip, but still extended straight. Edge forward with tiny steps until just before your opponent will be able to stab you by a leaning thrust. Then execute a Three. This can be done to the left or to the right, but to the left is usually better. This will put you into a position to perform a right-foot action such as a One or a Two. Further plays proceed from there.
This stance can be performed either with your left foot forward and to the right, but it is much more awkward.
*****
THEORY, PART TWO
-REACH: When your opponent out-reaches you, pursue them. If they out-reach you by more than six inches, almost exclusively use techniques which involve stepping toward their blade. If you out-reach them by the same margin, almost exclusively use techniques which involve stepping away from their blade.
-DAGGER: Keep your left hand high and to the inside, next to your right elbow, to deflect attacks during the measure that your opponent can hit you, but you might not be able or prepared to hit them. Do not break your profile to better use your dagger. This will happen naturally, as you perform left-foot steps which are to the left of your right foot. In stance B, keep your dagger in the same place it would be for stance A, despite the fact that your arm has moved. This way, it will not get in the way of your sweeping Three. Keep in mind that all of these techniques should also be applicable to daggers, with the stepping reversed if the dagger is in your off-hand.
-STEPPING: What I said earlier about not twisting your body was not incorrect, but it wasn't the whole truth. In truth, you can cross-step, it just is a very niche action. In general, a Twist is performed when you wish to perform a left-foot technique with your right foot forward, and vice versa. A Twist is performed by rotating your hips while maintaining your feet in the same position. This can mean crossing at the shins and dropping your body lower. You can also perform a Twisting Step, by rotating your hips in the opposite direction that would normally be dictated by your step. The thing to keep in mind here is that frequently, this is a bad idea. It reduces the size of your current step in favor of making your next step larger. It is still not a good idea to rotate with your waist or back, though. That destroys your profile, making many techniques less effective.
*****
ACTIONS, PART THREE
-TWIST: A Twist can be performed as part of a Step, a Gather, or just by itself. It is performed by rotating your hips by a movement of your legs, in the opposite direction than would be dictated by the position of your feet. So, if you start with your left foot and left hip forward, after a twist or twisting gather, you would have your left foot and your right hip forward. This allows you to do right-foot-forward techniques, when in actuality your left foot is forward. Similarly, starting from the same left-left-forward position, a twisting step would end with your right foot forward and your left hip remaining forward.
This allows for repeating the same footedness of actions multiple times. It would allow for a One followed by a One, Two, Five, or Six. Again, due to the slowness and awkwardness of the step, it is not highly advised. One place it can be useful is against an opponent who out-reaches you. You can use it for advancing into just outside of your opponent's leaning-thrust measure, to allow for an explosive action to carry you through the area where they may be able to hit you, but you cannot hit them.
*****
This is as far as I've gotten in over-thinking this New Simplified Destreza. I have been trying to think through how to fight against sword and dagger, and how to fight against case of rapiers, but there is a lot of work remaining there. Essentially, a dagger is a rapier that cannot really have opposition applied to it, but that doesn't need to be worried about until you get into a closer measure. For case, you need to do things which are simultaneously two front-foot or back-foot actions - Both a One and a Two, or both a Three and a Four.
I'm sure that over Pennsic I'll continue working on this. But for the moment, it is beautiful in its semi-completeness. When fencing single rapier versus single rapier at relatively matched reach, it seems good to focus on only the first four techniques and to ignore such complexities as the Twist. I hope to continue working this as a solid, workable thing, and to see my understanding grow.
If anybody wishes for me to teach these techniques, feel free to ask and I will be happy to. By teaching them, I refine my understanding of them, and my understanding of my own assumptions. This allows me to further improve myself.
HAVE GOOD SWORDS.
