In this post, I also use the word "parry" to mean "atajo", because fuck it they're the same thing. Atajos are frequently more proactive, but a proactive parry is still a parry.
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I have previously talked about the ways that one can defeat a parry. In short they are:
- Disengage: get around your opponent's blade by moving your tip (primarily).
- I also would consider an attack through the weak of your opponent's blade to be a category of disengage. After all - you're moving your sword around theirs until you get past the point where they can usefully parry, and then you attack without concern for the fact that their blade is there. Sounds like a disengage to me.
- Slipping out: pull your sword backwards until your tip escapes their parry, then push it back in.
- Yielding around: push your sword forward around their parry, creating an angle with your wrist.
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Thibault's dialect of Destreza is extremely focused. He has a lot of edge-cases he defines, but his defensive principles can be largely enumerated as two rules.
- ALWAYS keep your hand on the diameter line, between your sword-shoulder and your opponent's sword-shoulder.
- To defend yourself, bend at the wrist while lowering or raising your hand using your shoulder, to push their sword down and to the left or to the right.
- It counters disengages by being very "wide", from bending at the wrist.
- It also counters attacks through opposition, by pulling your tip away from your opponent and thus forcing them to engage your sword with a weaker part of their sword.
- It counters slipping out by your hand (and thus your sword) being as far forward as possible, increasing the time it will take them to pull their tip backwards out of your parry.
- It counters yielding around if your tip is pushing them far enough away from your center-of-mass (tip to the left or right, hand low) that they cannot yield around without taking a step.
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So that's where I was for a few months. Over time, I realized that Thibault's method of defense is a more correct version of the Line in Cross. That is to say, if you take their sword with the false edge of your sword, you can do something very similar in a standard Italian or Destreza grip, and it works stunningly.
Never take your hand off that center diameter, though, because doing so will necessarily decrease the reach of your Line in Cross and also make it harder for you to switch from a left LiC to a right LiC, due to how inertia works in a sword. This means that your parry will be worse against two of the three ways to defeat a parry
Over time, I rolled that around in my head and mushed it in with my previous work on parallax - in particular, the parts about the "cone of parallax".
As a refresher - the "cone of parallax" is the cone which defines how widely you have to parry in order to defeat your opponent's widest possible yield-around. The original thought experiment was based on specifically imagining your opponent striking your leading shoulder, in order to make the shape as simple as possible.
This led to me thinking very hard about what the "shape" of the ideal Line in Cross would be. In order to understand this, there are a few things that we need to consider.
- Yielding-around means that to parry someone, you need to parry wider, the farther forward your parry is.
- The human body is not a point. In a Spanish stance, the human body is profiled, with the shoulder near but not at the top. This means that the shape of possible yield-arounds is deformed from a cone, allowing for slightly more area upwards and much more area downwards.
- Intuitively - your body extends farther below your shoulder than it does above your shoulder.
- Removing your hand from the diameter line reduces how far forward your hand is extended. As well, the diameter line defines the farthest downwards that an opponent can yield around without dropping their shoulder.
- To simplify things, we can consider a shape that is "good enough". That is to say, it covers the farthest yield, but might over-cover some places.
- But in order to not over-cover too much, the shape should be smaller, the farther out we are.
Here are the cones in which someone who is far away (left) can attack you (right). The shorter rectangles with dots on them represent the opponent's arm, the longer ones represent their sword:
And here is the resulting shape that you need to push them out of, using Line in Cross or Narrowing. This is about the cross-section of the shape at arm's length, or halfway down your opponent's sword. If your blade is not perfectly perpendicular to them, you will need to use a somewhat altered shape, which grows a bit the farther forward the relevant part of your sword is.
You can see in the next few images that as the opponent gets closer, the kite or diamond shape grows.
This is about how far out you need to push their sword, at maximum, to be safe at close measure. Again, it grows the farther forward your sword is, with this diamond assuming that your blade is perpendicular to them. Note how the center of the diamond is their leading shoulder. If they were in a more square stance, the center of the diamond would still be the shoulder holding their sword.
I also sort of slipped in there the top edges of the shape, for executing Narrowing,since the way to derive those edges is the same. Note how the bottom edges of the diamond are taller, meaning that Line in Cross covers more space than Narrowing does.
In general, for Line in Cross, we should have our hands at or near the bottom of the diamond, and your tip should be at or past the left or right corner of the diamond. Otherwise, we cannot create the firm parry that Line in Cross should be. This implies and necessitates that Line in Cross should be a false-edge-leading parry.
For Narrowing, the reverse should be true. Hand goes to the top corner. This is much more awkward than Line in Cross.
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Thinking about this, I had a realization. There should be other parries, too, which follow the principles herein. It should be possible to place your hand at the left or right corner of the diamond, while placing your tip at the bottom or top corner of the diamond. And that's when I realized something that I should have realized years ago.
Using a loose interpretation of Viedma's work, that's how he describes the other two primary generals - Weak Under Strong and Weak Over Strong. I had been tripped up by those wily Italians due to how Viedma describes it. He describes Weak Under Strong as a position in which the weak of your sword is under their hilt.
This makes a lot of sense, if you are fighting a Spaniard in the LVD stance. However, an Italian might have their hand very low, which means that if your tip is under their tip, it's very likely that you can't execute a useful parry at all.
However, a Spaniard keeps their hilt in line with their shoulder with respect to your shoulder, most of the time. This means that "under their hilt" and "under their shoulder" would mean the same thing.
This means that we can interpret Weak Under Strong and Weak Over Strong to be centered not on their hilt, but on their shoulder. Which would make Weak Over Strong and Weak Under Strong the other parries that seemed like they should exist, according to the principles outlined above and the shape of the diamond.
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As a fun side note - this also explains how Thibault's parry against high, close blade positions works. He suggests that you execute Weak Over Strong for those positions, if we take my definition to be correct. We can also start classifying Spanish-ish fencing according to the positions that they prefer.
In order of preference...
- Viedma
- Line in Cross
- Weak Under Strong
- Would prefer you to not use anything else, but...
- Narrowing
- Weak Over Strong
- Thibault
- Line in Cross
- ...
- Weak Over Strong, if you really need to and you're in close
- Nothing else
- Fuck off
- Ok, there is some stuff we could classify as Narrowing in attacks
Thibault does have some additional things, too - he uses his quillons to push people outside of the bottom and sides of the diamond quite a bit. For that reason, I think that Thibault might be a superior style, and is an evolution beyond Viedma's LVD. He also prefers a longer blade, which probably helps to make Line in Cross the only thing you need.
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The above also makes several things work better, including making the Low General and High General work at all. I still need to experiment and work with this, but it seems like a useful thing which I can do.
For those who don't remember - the Low General is a transition from Line in Cross to Weak Under Strong. The High General is a transition from Narrowing to Weak Over Strong. Usually with a step or two in the direction of the opponent's blade.
Current additional topics for investigation include:
- Places to act on your opponent's blade.
- Do you want them in the center of each line segment of the diamond in order to act on them?
- What about the Krumphau specified by Thibault against Italians? It pushes them outside of the diamond, true, but how and why does it work?
- How do I act against an opponent who will not let me break their wrist somehow? e.g., Default Low Black Tiger Guard.
- What about opponents who try to refuse their tip by placing their dagger at the ready? For example, Ansteorran Whatever Style.
- Should there be a "Rising General" and "Falling General" as well, for transitioning from, for example, Weak Under Strong to Narrowing?
- What about people who fight SUPERMAN CASE? (Both arms extend and they fly forward)
- Opposition them with a stronger part of my blade to FORCE them into a position I want, as per Thibault against low guards?
- Ways to act against people who are in a Spanish stance.
- Why doesn't the Thibault "LUNGE INTO THEIR FACE" work with my LVD? Is it a tell? Is it the different distance?
- What are the differences between LVD and Thibault that are due to blade length? Grip / quillon placement? Overall approach?
- How do I strengthen my execution of the High General?
There's one more thing I wanted to cover. Reach discrepancies.
In Viedma's ideal Destreza, you almost exclusively use Line in Cross, transitioning into Weak Under Strong after or as part of the attack, as per the Low General. He argues that students don't actually need Narrowing, Weak Over Strong, or the High General, and that the High General should only be studied after a student becomes a master.
In this ideal game plan, you approach with Line in Cross. If your opponent gets out of you subjecting them, you transition to Weak Under Strong. I think that Viedma believes that you should Just Not Screw up, and your opponent should never be able to escape your parry. This leads me to believe that, in practice, people probably just exited the circle by taking a straight leftward or rightward step if their opponent escaped their subjection.
However.
We live in the real world. Especially Italian styles are crafted to be able to take advantage of reach, positioning and backward movement to escape the Line in Cross. As a shorter-reach fighter, you will have maybe one clear shot, when you get into position. As well, your opponent will try their damnedest to put you into positions that make you uncomfortable.
This means that, as a shorter-reach fighter, the expected payoff of making an attack that you are slightly less comfortable with is greater than the utility of exiting measure if you don't have perfect positioning.
Intuitively: Every time you try for positioning, you're giving your longer-reach opponent a chance to make an attack roll. It's a very low chance to hit - maybe one in 20. But the more times you do that, the more chances they have, and eventually you will screw up. This means that you need to be as good as possible, to make as many positions as you can into positions which are good for you. To optimize for victory, you need to reduce the number of times you try to maneuver for positioning.
This is why long-reach fighters get away with Stupid Bullshit Stances. Because Stupid Bullshit can create uncertainty, and that creates hesitation. And in a fight with a reach discrepancy, hesitation means another chance for them to take the shot.
This is also why so many "legendary figures" have long reach. Because we are animals, and if someone has a reputation for being a good fighter, that creates hesitation. Hesitation creates opportunities for the person with reach, which creates a cycle which feeds into itself.
This is also a reason it sucks so much to have shorter reach. Because if you are a high-ranked fencer, it can feel like you have something to lose when you lose to a Young Whippersnapper. That creates hesitation. And as I have asserted already, hesitation creates opportunities for the fighter with more reach, which leads to a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle.
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Anyhow. That was a super long post, and I hope y'all enjoyed reading it.
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