Lupold's REAL ULTIMATE DESTREZA - Index

(The title is a joke-reference to this website, an example of early internet humor, because I'm more likely to follow through with something if I'm less serious about it.)

~OPENING~

I haven't been using this blog very much recently. This is because, any time I try to write something, I get caught up in too many layers of explanation to actually say anything at all.

So, I had an idea. An idea to force me to think things through, but limit me from getting too deep into edge-case scenarios. This idea should also make things accessible to both depth-first learners, who want to have everything Completely Correct At The Get-Go, and breadth-first learners, who want to get a general idea and then Adjust As Things Progress.

In this, I plan to start off with the hyper-idealized form of my study of Destreza. It will present the general geometric concepts, and will be intentionally unreasonable. Then, I plan to cover each individual section with a focus on why the hyper-idealized version of Destreza doesn't work, and what adjustments need made to make it work.

In order to attempt to get myself to proceed on this project, I herein will write an index. This index will serve as an outline for future posts. Hopefully when I inevitably find a thing that I did wrong here, I will edit this, rather than giving up and making a new post.

1. Opening / Index
1. Order of Reading
2. The Section of Primordial Truth
1. Introduction
2. On The Four Dimensions of Movement
1. Disengage versus Cut Over
2. Pulling Out versus Pushing Over
3. Opposition versus Attack to Slowness
4. Yielding Around versus Pommel Strike
3. The Section of Truth - The True Art
1. Introduction
2. On Divisions of Space
3. On Stepping
4. On Defensive Bladework
5. On Offensive Bladework
6. On Positioning
4. The Sections of Lies - Inconveniences of Geometry
1.  Introduction
2. On Divisions of Space
3. On Stepping
4. On Defensive Bladework
5. On Offensive Bladework
6. On Positioning
5. The Sections of Lies - Biology and Eccentric Movements
1.  Introduction
2. On Divisions of Space
3. On Stepping
4. On Defensive Bladework
5. On Offensive Bladework
6. On Positioning
6. The Sections of Lies - Timing and Feints
1.  Introduction
2. On Divisions of Space
3. On Stepping
4. On Defensive Bladework
5. On Offensive Bladework
6. On Positioning
7. The Sections of Lies - Distance and Asymmetries
1.  Introduction
2. On Divisions of Space
3. On Stepping
4. On Defensive Bladework
5. On Offensive Bladework
6. On Positioning
8. The Sections of Lies - Asymmetrical Armaments
1.  Introduction
2. On Divisions of Space
3. On Stepping
4. On Defensive Bladework
5. On Offensive Bladework
6. On Positioning
9. The Sections of Lies - Asymmetrical Stances
1.  Introduction
2. On Divisions of Space
3. On Stepping
4. On Defensive Bladework
5. On Offensive Bladework
6. On Positioning
10. Closing

 So, that seems like an index.

~ORDER OF READING~

My intention, for this project, is to have two possible orders of reading.

Both orders of reading will start with the Book of Primordial Truth. This describes a framework for how swords relate to each other, which is to be used throughout the book. After, there are two ways that one can proceed.

DEPTH-FIRST: For those who don't want to learn wrong things over and over again, you can go depth-first. Read chapter 1 of each section, then chapter 2 of each section, and so forth. This will leave some cross-chapter references opaque, and might require multiple times through the book to fully understand what I'm talking about.

BREADTH-FIRST: For those who don't want to get over-focused on individual minutiae at the cost of losing sight of the overall point of the book, you can proceed breadth-first. This is the order of presentation, with each section in the order it is indexed. This will mean that you will learn things that, in a broad sense, are correct. However, there are many details in which the broad understanding of things is not correct, and this ordering will force you to re-evaluate your understanding of things repeatedly.

We'll see how this goes.

Monday Practice Report, 20181008

It was a relatively small practice, and I got there pretty early.

This practice, because of a person who is very skilled and who I haven't fought very often before, I decided to use my 45-inch rapier and dagger. I fought with them for the whole night, just to make sure I was correctly used to them for when the time came.

We were in the basement, which meant that the lighting was very much worse.

First, I fenced someone who uses shorter sword and dagger, in a sort of Midrealm-ish style. The pizza slice methodology. He was somewhat off I think, or maybe I was Very On, because I took most of those passes. I tried using some of New Spanish Things with my 45-inch rapier, but they didn't work amazingly well. Didn't get me stabbed, but didn't stab the other person either. That said, my feinting game around daggers remains pretty strong.

Second, I fought the person who moved from out of state. They were good fights - he took all but one of the passes, which was interesting and exciting. I tried a number of different methods for dealing with his very specific style. First I tried simply applying opposition in the New Spanish Way that I have been. That worked okay in terms of not letting him stab me before I realized it, but wasn't ideal. I then tried circling through with it. That worked okay-ish, but he spent the entire time moving backwards to get out of measure. Then I tried cutting into his sword as my first action, combined with watching his tempo so I can discern when he is going to attack. That worked better, and I believe was the place where I scored a touch. The last thing I tried was the one that seemed to unsettle him the most - essentially, circling with my blade gaining his on the low line. I circled leftwards at first, and then tried rightwards. I think that worked best of all, and the smooth forward movement forced him into my tempo of action. He's much better-trained than I am, so it didn't allow me to touch him, but it is a valid direction for study.

One thing I did not try, which I probably could have benefited from, is the method of circling and counter-punching that I use against long case fighters, in which I try to get "behind" their sword in order to make an attack.

He did a lot of subtle things that gave him minor competitive advantage, in the way that he presented himself and situated himself. It was interesting to note, even if it was unconscious. I did not want to spend the energy to play the counter-games to those things, but I think I know how to play them. More on that later.

I also fought my cadet. He is doing pretty well in terms of smoothness, but his form needs work. I spent a while afterwards re-teaching him some principles of Destreza, which was fun.

My last set of fights was against Lilias. I think we performed relatively evenly, though she might have had a bit of an advantage. I had a joyous and sociable face on, which meant I wasn't performing at my maximum tournament game. I don't know if that would have changed anything, but it is an internal fact which is worthwhile to note. I kept trying to do Destreza-ish things like I had been trying to teach Rodrigo, and because her technique is very solid, they weren't quite working right. I think they would have worked better with my shorter sword, or playing a more Italian game would have worked better with my longer sword - one of those two. This is not intended as sour grapes or to say "omg I'm better than her!!!!!" or anything like that - I really enjoyed fencing her and am attempting to note things which existed in my brain at the time, as I saw them.

I fenced her after I spent a while teaching Rodrigo, and teaching always makes my fencing suffer for a while afterwards. We also talked for a while afterwards, which was pleasant.

We also had a tournament sort of thing. I was able to get into tourney-brainspace very well and very quickly, which was satisfying to note. I fought a few newer people and used my reach advantage to win those fights. I then fought the second person I fought in the night, using what I had learned earlier.

The passes went weirdly. He took one. Then we had a weird train wreck in which he thought he stabbed my face with his dagger then moved back, and I took the moment to stab him because I thought he had just slapped me with the flat of his dagger rather than anything actually good. He actually gave out an incredulous "what?!" when I said his shot wasn't good. I then asked if he thought his shot was good, and he immediately backpedaled with a "let's re-fight it".

I agreed to this, since that is my usual mode of operation. However, this exchange is good to note. It is a subtle way that someone can be a (perhaps unintentional) jerk in our game. If you "offer to re-fight" before what happened can be conclusively determined, it can undermine possible situations in which you might have lost a pass. Essentially, it allows one to pretend to be giving something away, when you had nothing to give. I'm not saying that the dude necessarily was doing this, or that if he was doing this it was intentional - I'm saying that in a tournament setting, I need to be prepared to push back in circumstances like this.

I didn't mention it explicitly, but the reason it's a perhaps-unintentional jerk move is that there is no way for me to know if, had the situation been reversed, he would have accepted my offer of the same. This makes it Weird, and is frustrating because it could be intentional or it could be unintentional. Even a lack of reciprocity in that case could be unintentional, which is its own form of bad behavior.

In our last fight, he positioned himself under the very bright light, which meant it was hard for me to see him. I moved back and waited for a good 10 seconds. He asked why I was waiting, and I said that I didn't want to fight him under that light. He made a show of being a good sport and moving away from under the light. This, too, is a subtle, perhaps-unintentional move that feels kind of dickish to me. I need to be prepared to not allow my opponent to dictate the terms of our fight, in tournaments.

I'm very used to the people I fence in the East Kingdom, in which there are relatively few people who are both skilled and do the subtle gamesmanship that can happen in competitive sport. Because of this, I keep my eye on those people and prepare to execute counter-gamesmanship when fighting them. The gamesmanship here felt so pervasive that I'm not sure if it was intentional. This makes it a strange game to play, where it's easy for me to come out looking like I'm being a dick.

Basically, I need to flowchart out these interactions ahead of time so that I can have responses ready for when there are things which could be intentional, or could be unintentional, which would give my opponent advantages.

I fenced a very good case fighter in the pools portion of things, and he got a thing on my foot that might have been a good foot-shot. In retrospect, I am not sure it was good. I had said "no" because the angle I saw it coming in on looked like it was a slap to the top of my foot while I was taking a wide step, but he is a nice dude and I should have asked.

I ended up taking third place in the tournament, since it was pools trickling into a top-four single-elimination best-of-three tournament. I got a neat pin out of the deal, which I immediately stuck to the edge of my hood. Yay!

So, Plus-Minus-Plus Exercise:
Thing I Did Well: I mined for more data about how to fence against that particular style.
Area For Improvement: I want to work more on the things I mined from practice, in terms of fencing swords which are either very close or very far from the center line. Maybe consult Thibault???
Other Thing I Did Well: I got into tournament brain-space very quickly and very thoroughly. Good job, me!

Anyhow. It was a good practice, despite not having several people who I wanted to fence at it.

Practice Report

I just want to write a quick practice report in order to not forget A Thing. I found this thing because I couldn't use my left hand while fencing, due to not wanting to pop some stitches in my left hand.

While I was fighting Zohane, I realized that a particular thing was working well. When I felt him pressing against a part farther out on my sword, it was better for me to execute "tippier" opposition. So, the disengage/change-lines/counter-disengage game. However, as soon as I felt him press into the middle of my blade, I could do more "hilt-forward" actions, bringing my tip farther away from his body than my hilt in preparation for a cut, as I stepped forward. I used this for the rest of the night, with a decent amount of success.

If I remember correctly, it seemed like this was possible regardless of which part of his sword he was pressing with. I don't know if it's that he just happened to be pressing with a relatively middle-ish part of his blade, or if the level of pressure required to trigger the feeling of correctness here could only be expressed through a somewhat middle-ish part of his blade, or if the pressure required meant a level of commitment on his part. For that last one, I mean that if he pressed that hard with his tip it would mean he couldn't move his sword in time. But if the point of contact was farther down on his sword, it might have meant that I was deep enough in that he couldn't do a quick little disengage.

That last point is a thing I should Do Some Math about. Lever equations and such. The basic idea, semi-mathematically expressed, is this:

(directional commitment from hand of opponent) /( distance from hilt of contact on opponent's sword) = (amount of sentiment felt by you)

At longer distance, this would mean that if you feel a lot of sentiment, there is a large amount of commitment from your opponent's body-structure to press into your sword. At closer distance, the same amount of sentiment doesn't necessarily represent the same degree of commitment. But at the same time, as you get closer, there is more of their sword past the point of contact with your sword, meaning that any motion to get around your parry would be larger. This means that their commitment is less, but it doesn't matter. Which is fascinating to think about.

The weird thing to me, here, is that the feeling I was keying off of was "where on my sword I thought that they were pressing". Not the strength of pressure, but the location. It's very possible that the strength and location are linked - after all, strong pressure at my tip just feels like my opposition failing. It's also possible that the mechanics of how my sword can hinge on my opponent's sword (without changing the relationship of our blades) are linked more closely to location of contact on my sword. It is a thing for me to think about.

The more I think about it, the more I think it has to do with the idea that, if I'm using my sword to make a "wall" between their sword and my body, if I rotate around anywhere other than the center of my blade, then one "side" of the "wall" will be shorter than the other and thus more vulnerable. So if I rotate my blade around a part near my tip, my opponent can probably disengage around my tip. And if I rotate my blade around a part near my hilt, it's very likely that my opponent can disengage under my hilt.

This likely means that, since there is more of me below my shoulder than above it, high guards (like my interpretation of Narrowing) should distribute my sword's defensiveness farther forward, since my hilt needs to be less far off-line to cover the size of my head, rather than needing to cover the height of my gut.

In summary, this is what I found.

• Taking my tip far off-line feels correct and works correctly when my opponent presses against the center of my sword.
• Why?
• 1: Is it because of the ratio of depth of penetration and commitment?
• 2: Is it because of the special case of how swords hinge around the center?
• 3: Is it because if the center of my sword is being pressed against, my opponent is probably using the center of their sword and this means they have deep penetration?
• 4: Is there a parabolic arc of "ideal angle of blade" versus "location of contact"? 
• It seems like 1 and 3 are opposing assumptions, as are 2 and 4. Interesting!
• How do I prove this?
• If it's #1, this would mean I can do this even when just the barest amount of tip is pressing against my sword. If it's #3, this would not be the case.
• If it's #2, I shouldn't be able to do half of the blade angle when my opponent is pressing against 3/4 of the way up my blade. If it's #4, this should work.
• It would be interesting to figure out how the back half of the blade should act based on #4, if #4 is true. My gut says it is. Further testing would probably be something like, "we start in this position. What is optimal here?"
• Regardless of if it's #2 or #4, I probably need to figure out special cases for defensive opposition at various locations of blade contact. From there, I can probably tease out a general rule, but that is not yet where I am.
• Thinking about different-sized implements would be interesting for #4. Would the arc be the same for a dagger as for a sword? Even though the dagger has much stronger opposition at its tip than the sword at its tip?

I have a thing to think about. YAYS.

Also, topic to think about: What kinds of attacks can one do when in-fighting, and how can one neutralize the possibility of the opponent using their off-hand to defend themselves?

Also, other topic to think about: How, in this system, can I avoid having to come to (or close to) in-fighting?

Seven Layers of Tactical Decision-Making

Pennsic was good, but I don't want to talk about that.

I went to practice yesterday, and it was frustrating. I couldn't figure out why things weren't working right, until I was leaving practice talking to Rowan, and I realized that I had completely forgotten to implement a coherent strategy all practice. Like, at all.

Some background - in the way I think of fencing, there are several levels to the game. They are interconnected, and the boundaries between them can be fuzzy sometimes, but they go something like this, from bottom to top:

• A physical movement.
• This is something like "extend your arm" or "step left while turning your shoulder behind you", or even could be "perform a lunge" or "execute a giarata". At this level of consideration, your concern should be primarily internal. Are you doing the thing correctly? Could you do it more efficiently? Is it happening in the way you envisioned it?
• This is where most solo-drills live.
• A technique.
• This is the point at which we consider that we have an opponent. A technique is different from a movement in that the way you perform it changes based on the positioning of yourself and your opponent. Here, we're not considering edge-cases or weirdness. We're considering performing the technique, and it going correctly.
• This is where most pair-drills aspire to be.
• A specific implementation of a technique. (I will call this an operation, henceforth)
• This is where messy stuff comes in. There are idealized versions of techniques, but there are a lot of squishy places where the technique "goes wrong", or your opponent does something unexpected. This can be anything from "oh shit, my opponent disengaged at the exact same time I did my thing" to "my opponent isn't letting me get them firmly within the bounds of the technique, so I need to figure out how to modify or adapt the technique to make it work given what they are letting me have".
• This is what we consider when our opponent is staying too far away, or not giving you as strong opposition as you want, or they are pushing on your sword way harder than you expect them to. Doing this part well in a bout tests the boundaries of your knowledge of techniques. Will this work here, or will it fail here?
• This is where I personally get stuck on period manuals. "Oh, but what if they have a weapon that's longer or shorter? How does that change things? What if they do this obscure thing? And that other one?" It's somewhat exhausting, really, and I really wish more period masters covered possible variations more thoroughly.
• This is also covered in pair-drilling, but it's hard to actually get people to focus on it when they're concerned with "doing the drill right". Frequently people think that the problem is with them, rather than trying to vivisect the technique to figure out what makes it tick.
• This is closer to what I consider an "exercise" rather than a "drill".
• The possible results of an operation. I guess you could call this "an exchange"?
• This is where one considers the places your opponent could be after you do your technique. "After you do your technique" is a vast over-simplification, though. Humans have a constant loop of perception and action going in their heads. As well, different types of perception happen faster than other types - you can react to a sound faster than to a sight, and faster still to a touch. This is neurochemical truth, and unavoidable.
• Back to the point here - there is a small gap between what you perceive and the actual state of the world. There is another small gap between the decision to perform an action, and your muscles implementing that action. This layer of the tactical process is all about considering what you can perceive during your operation, and what that could mean in tactical terms.
• I call the aggregate time of those two gaps "a tempo". Many people disagree with me, including period masters. I call it such because it is the smallest amount of time that you can be sure that your opponent will not react to your action. They might predict what you are going to do, and they might even predict when you're going to do it, but they won't REACT to the action because it is physically impossible.
• An example is in order here. I am so, so sorry.
• If you are attempting to find your opponent's blade by making contact with it on the high inside line and your blade doesn't touch it when you expect it to, what could they be doing?
• They could have yielded around, moving their hilt away from the line but keeping their tip on-line.
• They could have performed a disengage or a disengage-attack.
• They could be performing a half-disengage or low-line attack.
• Or, they could have pulled their blade back entirely, either by pulling far backwards or by performing a moulinet.
• (Or they could perform some bastard combination of the above.)
• The job we have here is to figure out, given the small amount of information we have (DID NOT FEEL SWORDS TOUCH) what we should do in order to infallibly not get stabbed. The swords-not-touching is the very first information we receive that Something Is Not Going According To Our Initial Operation. In some cases, the correct thing to do might be to wait until we see what they are doing with our eyes, instead of acting prematurely.
• I'm disregarding the idea that someone might disengage earlier because I'm currently assuming that we're acting
• In this particular case, I feel relatively comfortable (with my tip-heavy blade) doing a mid-blade rotation from my wrist to place my tip low and my hilt to the left, creating a descending cut. That rotation lets me avoid acting directly counter to the original gaining motion, which would be slow. That descending cut will catch everything except for the fourth option there, and the fourth option will take enough time to complete that I can perceive that it is happening soon enough to counter it.
• This leads to the next blossoming perception loop, in which we perceive if our opponent has been caught by our cut. And, if not, why not and what can we do about it?
• This is where tactics get interesting. As you can see from the above example, the tree of possibilities blossoms too quickly to map out exhaustively. Especially for beginners, this is where having a coherent style Matters A Lot. Most period masters are relatively congruent and cover most situations pretty fully. Even if they don't cover a specific situation, there's probably something in their manual that is relevant and can be adapted to fill the gaps. They usually aren't exhaustive in enumerating possible results, however.
• Thibault's manual covers this really, really well. In excruciating detail, really, which is why it's So Damn Long. He's one of few period masters who does this, as far as I know. Fabris does a bit as well, but not nearly as exhaustively. Meyer, Capoferro, and other period masters sort of cover this, but not at the level of exhaustiveness that would be useful.
• Drills tend not to be designed cover this. The Capoferro Hierarchy Drill covers this somewhat, which is why it is such a good drill.
• This is the first layer that you can lie at. When a more experienced fencer does a half-lunge at a range that they can't stab a newer fencer at, they're lying here. They are telling the newer fencer that they will get stabbed, and the newer fencer, hapless as they are, believes it and jumps, giving the more experienced fencer the opportunity to stab them.
• Perception of these lies is what I believe to be the hallmark of a no-longer-beginner fencer. A lack of reaction to these lies is essential to fencing correctly, and is one of the most pernicious mistakes that even skilled fencers make. This isn't to say you shouldn't move at all - something that is a lie can also be a way to reposition for a different technique. And that can lead into jockeying for position. However, a twitch "HEY I'M THROWING A LUNGE" from out of measure is different, and responding to that is evidence of a deficiency in someone's fencing.
• I tend to call things that cover this "exercises" rather than drills. I think this is what most people use slow-fencing for. I tend to want to do them at-speed, because it's easy to accidentally react faster than possible when you're operating at 1/4 speed. Though, a case could be made for slow-fencing in that if your opponent predicts what you're doing and when you will do it, they could move that fast.
• A set of tactics, or the techniques you plan to engage in and the operations they can flow into.
• This is what I view as the highest useful level - a game-plan of what can be done. A good game-plan assumes that your opponent will do the thing that is the worst-for-you possible smart move that is based on them reacting to you or you reacting to them. Here, we are not yet thinking about predicting our opponent's action.
• This is what I forgot to have in mind yesterday.
• A basic Italian set of tactics would be something like this:
• Get in a backwards-leaning guard just out of both you and your opponent's lunge measure.
• If they manage to step forward and lunge or pass at this stage, execute a single-tempo or duo-tempi parry/riposte.
• Take a small step forward with your front foot and find their sword to the inside or outside, whichever occupies more space
• If they disengage, find their blade to the other side. Your hilt should be low enough that they can't strike to your body under your sword.
• Complete the small step with your back foot, leaning forward and progressing your find to a gain.
• If they disengage here, you can probably just lunge and stab them.
• Lunge and stab them through the eye.
• If they do an oh-shit emergency parry at this stage, they probably have to come off-line enough that their sword isn't a threat any more. Execute a tiny disengage around their hilt and stab them in the chest.
• That set of tactics is very basic, and doesn't address everything! It says nothing about if your opponent uses their off-hand or an off-hand implement, nor does it say things about if your opponent does weird things to gain your blade from below. It's a basic framework, and as time passes more things get hung from it. Maybe it has a deep strategic deficit which means the person using it will always lose if someone does a very particular sequence of actions. Who knows! Diagnosing these problems and searching through them is what I fucking live for, in this sport.
• Being a cold and ruthless killer means living at level and trying not to go to a higher level of tactics. This is the level at which things work well and consistently. Above here, we get to strange games of anticipation and then knowing your opponent. If you allow yourself to get sucked into those, it allows you to be lied to. If your opponent can firmly convince you that something is going to happen, then they do something else, then you will lose to them. It's a game of "who can lie better", and I think it's best not to play because there will always be a better liar.
• This is a very Spanish sentiment. The Spanish abhor lies and feints. I happen to agree with them philosophically, though I don't necessarily agree with their system.
• On the other side of things, Giganti and Capoferro wax rhapsodic about how the pinnacle of fencing is deceit. Many people agree with them, and do quite well with it. I will not say they're wrong, but it feels like a shallow end to the game. I'd rather work on perfecting my strategy, since that is universal.
• Fabris is the only person who really covers this in any depth, as far as I know. This is essentially all of what Fabris's Book Two is. He lists six game-plans with single rapier, and then four game-plans with sword and dagger. He then flow-charts out what you should do based on your opponent's reactions. I wish he had explicitly stated where these tactics don't work, and when to abandon them for other things. He says it in the positive sense, but I wish he said it in the negative sense more often. I understand that hubris is period, but still. 
•  Tactical Deceit
• This is the level at which you create and break expectations in people. It's very useful, and relies on finding quick rock-paper-scissors exchanges. Generally, this is implemented on the offense - I execute attack A, letting you execute defense A. Then I do it again. The third time I start off looking like I'm doing attack A, but then switch to attack B, which defeats defense A.
• Some basic patterns here include:
• A-A-B
• A-B-D
• In general, "do one thing until you don't do it"
• In general, "do a progression then skip a step in that progression"
• This can be done defensively, I guess? But it's much weirder, and relies on your opponent being more on-the-ball and taking your bait. This is something that Maija Soderholm talks about in her book, "The Liar, the Cheat, and the Thief", but I have not worked with that book enough to comment on whether the thing she speaks of is different from what I try to do.
• The way I try to do this is the German way - making the final technique a "masterstroke" that counterattacks the "expected" technique, but also defends against all other direct, single-tempo attacks. It's not the easiest to set up, but it allows us to implement this level while still staying true to the principles of the previous level. Even doing that though, this level should still be subsidiary to Tactics.
• You work on this by fighting a bunch of pickups, over and over again, forever. Soderholm's book has many drills to work on it, but I have not even attempted these drills.
• Personal Knowledge
• This is the level of "Oh, Remy is really good at in-fighting, so I should do this particular thing." Or "Lupold likes to snipe, so it'd be good if I bum-rush him." It's all about knowing who you are fighting.
• This is a level I do not like to rely on. It relies on using what you know of people to stab them. However, they might know that you know these things, so they might be expecting you to do a thing. But if you know that they know that you know, then you can do a different thing. But if they know that you know thaewnlkweanglakewnflkseanf newlafEWANFIAWNFLAENDFLKFNADFKLNFKLANDSF
• As stated, I don't like it because it can spiral infinitely. Now, if you can execute tactically sound operations which don't leave openings and Just Happen to strike at places you know your opponent is weak, you can do that. In fact, I encourage it. It should be subsidiary to Tactics, however.
• This all boils down to understanding what parts of The Game Of Fencing you understand better than your opponent. If you know this ahead of time, it might give you an edge. Might. In reality, I think it's best to just fight your fight and diagnose things from the flow of the fight, rather than from outside knowledge.
• Of course, if you are attempting to create winning Pennsic Champions pairings, this skill is super important. This skill is what lets you look at a fight and figure out who is more or less likely to win.
• Personal knowledge of yourself is important, though - it's good to know what parts of the game of fencing you are more or less strong at. In a tournament, it lets you attempt to lead bouts away from those areas. For example, if I'm not strong at in-fighting, I can stay at a distance. In training, it lets you decide what to beat your head against until you understand it better. This means improving every level below this one in that area of the game.
• In training, if you rely on this too much, then you and your opponent might, over the years, descend into a shallow sub-game of the overall game of fencing, in which you both attempt to hammer at a particular part of the game of fencing. This is why R&D is important - R&D is what happens when you try to break out of your known "best" fight and branch out, to try to find other techniques that are effective or useful in your overall game.

 So, that's the full breakdown of "What is Tactics", from my perspective. Hopefully it's useful to someone other than me. Hell, hopefully breaking it down like this is useful to me. The short version of the list is:

• Movements are smaller than,
• Techniques are smaller than,
• Operations are smaller than,
• Exchanges are smaller than,
• Tactics, which should be your focus above all,
• But if you can use Deceit you might as well,
• And if you can use Personal Knowledge then why not.

 I feel like I could do better. Like, making that into a poem? Seems like effort.

Bored of writing now, so I'm done.

Teaching a Class!

I'm teaching a class at EK 50 Year, about how swords work in terms of rigid systems!

It takes stuff from a few papers and adapts them to a slightly more utilitarian perspective, rather than the most-expressive-in-least-space form that the papers outline. It is available here:

CLICK ON THIS LINK CLICK ON IT.

Running?!?!?

I decided halfway through writing this that it should be in my blog. I'm not a doctor, but these are all things I've found work well for me over time. I'm not a marathon runner and my speed isn't super fast, but these things seem to work.

My standard running checklist for when something is going less-than-ideally is as follows:

1. Check my torso and head positioning.

Breathing is a difficult subject. You're doing cardio, so the exercise you're doing is optimized to place that system under stress. The thing you're trying to train up is your diaphragm and chest cavity's ability to pull in and expel air.

The most important thing I corrected here was my posture - maintaining a light engagement through your mid to lower back is super important for giving your chest cavity the space to breathe. The "bracing method" would work here, with perhaps a bit less engagement through the abs.

Further related to posture, I find that rolling my back "upwards" helps to "open up" my chest and allow me to engage my chest musculature a bit better, to allow me to get more muscles involved in pulling in oxygen. The position is a bit like the "idealized body position" that Devon described in class and said *not* to do when in a fencing guard. In this case, I thiiiiiink it's okay because you're doing it for a specific purpose. Alternately, it's very possible that my chest cavity is shaped in a way that means I need to do this to optimize, but other people don't need to.

Looking forward or upward makes it easier to breathe. Looking downwards with your face creases your esophagus, which means the air going into your lungs has to change direction more, and thus experiences more friction with your esophagus.

Mouth-shape matters here. I usually find that a shape closer to an "O" or a circle makes it easier to pull air in for some weird reason. The other thing I do here sometimes is open my mouth wide enough to bare my teeth, which engages tissue in the nasal passages enough to open them a bit more, which allows me to combo mouth-nose breathe. Unless I do that, pulling in air through my nose is a complete no-go while running, especially outside.

2. Check my breathing pace.

The most important thing for me these days, after dealing with all of that, is breathing pace. So, how often you breathe in or out.

One thing to keep in mind here is that the cycle of breathing is easier if you only cycle from about ~25% full to about ~75% full, averaging around 50%. The farther from 50% your lung capacity is, the harder you have to push to get there. This means that up to a point, you can breathe shallower and more often.

Eventually you hit diminishing returns here - rapidly changing from inhaling to exhaling requires energy too. As well, the faster you breathe the less efficient the oxygen exchange in your lungs grows. This means that for your breathing, you have to optimize among a whole bunch of different things.

Usually my ideal pace is about half a breath per time my foot strikes the ground. So, right foot hits and then I breathe in, and then left foot hits and I breathe out. This usually feels a little too fast at the start of the run, and gradually feels better as I continue. I tend to have pretty close to three steps per second when going for a run, which should give you an idea of the pace of breathing.

For selecting a pace of breathing, I usually try to synchronize it with my steps. If your lungs feel tired, you need to give them time to recover. This means you need to breathe slower for a while. So after a really hard hill, I might switch from an in-out pace of 1-1 to 2-2. So - start breathing in with the step left, then step right, then step left again and start breathing out, step right, and repeat with a step left and breathing in.

I've found that developing breathing strength is more effective if I go through "reps" of breathing faster and harder, then slower to let my lungs recover. So, I go through the following sequence:

-Start at 1-1

-Go for a while at 2/3-2/3 (counting out that I should have four breaths per three steps)

-Go for a while at 1/2-1/2 (one in-out per time a foot hits the ground)

-Maybe go for a while at 1/3-1/3 (in-out-in or out-in-out each time my foot hits the ground)

-back to 1/2-1/2

-back to 2/3-2/3

-back to 1-1

-Down to 3/2-3/2 (two breaths per three steps)

-Down to 2-2 (one breath per two steps)

-Down to 3-3 (one breath per three steps)

-Maybe down to 4-4

-back up to 3-3

-back up to 2-2

-back up to 3/2-3/2

-back up to 1-1

-Repeat

This is a weird sequence to time out, but it provides steps upwards and downwards in breathing-exertion that feel to me like they are progressive in terms of effort, so long as you don't let your breathing get too shallow. The faster sequence forces you to push your lungs harder, and the slower sequence lets your breathing-muscles dispel some lactic acid and recover.

Generally though, a 1-1 breathing sequence is the most efficient sequence as far as I can tell from my heart rate.

Breathing is also important for dispelling heat - I usually end up breathing faster and shallower when it's hotter out. At that point the thing my body is trying to do isn't get oxygen - it's shed heat.

 

Paying some passive attention to counting out my breathing also helps me to not get bored.

2. If my ankle hurts, or both my knees and shins hurt, I'm probably hitting the ground too hard.

It's likely that you might be bouncing up and down too much. This is usually what causes ankle or knee/shin problems for me. Try to make your gait more efficient in terms of how far your head goes from the ground.

 

It's also possible that you need to stretch after running. I do some ankle stretches after - wall leans with leg both straight and bent, and standing on my tippy-toes several times for strength. That's a whole post on its own.

I need to wear athletic insoles because I have somewhat collapsed arches. These are the ones I wear. I wear them in all of my shoes, including my running shoes.

3. If my knee hurts, I'm probably heel-striking more than I should.

 

One fix for this is to make your foot strike the ground more toward ball of the foot. Usually the ideal place for me feels like the middle of my foot. There's a bit of contact, bend, and bounce with my ankles, but not too much.

It's also possible that my shoes are tied too tightly or too loosely. Usually for me I end up heel-striking more if my shoes are too loose, because when my toes strike my feet shift around in them.

 

It's also possible that your gait is inefficient in a weird way. Generally, if you are going either uphill or downhill, you need to decrease the size of your gait based on the size of the hill. This is because otherwise, you're pulling yourself up with your thighs, rather than letting yourself bounce forward.

 

It's also possible that you're not using your shins as a lever appropriately. Look at this gif of someone jogging. Note how as the runner extends their leg, their knee moves "backwards" relative to their ankle, and their ankle moves "forwards" relative to their knee. It's harder to see, but during their stride, their knee bends so that their ankle moves "backwards" relative to their knee, and their knee moves "forwards" relative to their ankle.

 

This results in a place on the runner's shin that essentially only moves forwards, and acts as a fulcrum between the knee and the foot. The lower this is, the slower you go, but the more leverage you have and the less stressful your stride is on your knee. I like to imagine that my feet are going around a wheel, and the shin-fulcrum is the middle of the wheel. If I'm going uphill or downhill the wheel gets smaller, and if I'm on a flat the wheel gets larger.

Essentially - the more your knees move back and forth relative to your feet, the more shearing stress you are putting on your knees.

4. If my shin hurts, I'm probably toe-striking more than I should.

Easiest fix here is to do the opposite of the above - try to make the place that you're striking the ground farther back on your foot, closer to your heel. Generally you should also be aiming to have your foot impact the ground pretty "flat" relative to the angle of the ground. So angle your toes up some if you're going uphill, and down some if you're going downhill.

Or make your stride less fast and more leverage, like I rambled about above in the knee section.

Or you could wear shin sleeves. I have a pair of these.

(I got interrupted here and lost momentum, so I'm going to slack-ass the last bits of this.)

5. Make sure I'm not running too fast.

 

I frequently have to step my speed back a whole lot, until it feels like I'm barely doing more than walking with some bounce in my step, in order to have successful runs.

6. Make sure I have a semi-positive point of view on run.

Getting out and doing anything, even one minute of exercise, is better than nothing. Beyond that, the point of cardio is to raise your heart rate for a period of time, rather than to cover distance. If you wanted to cover distance we have cars. The health benefits of a run are based on how long you're in cardio heart rate zones.

Re-focusing on my 45 and dagger

Hello!

Today, I write a post in order to help me re-focus on my 45-inch rapier and my dagger. Pennsic is coming, and I have been slacking. So, in order to re-focus, I should take inventory of the largest holes I see in my sword-and-dagger game. Even though this will be less correct before practice than it would be after practice, doing it now means I'll be thinking of it at practice.

• WEAKNESSES
• My sense of distance can be shaken with timing. Frequently I fall into a trap of viewing my opponent's measure as being the same as mine, even if they have a longer measure.
• The first problem can be fixed by a variant on the Peony Visualization Technique (which I have never described here, at least never under that name). Essentially - at all moments, I should be automatically visualizing where my opponent could place their center of mass, one quarter-second from now. I should be acting based on the worst-case scenario that this presents, not based on their current location.
•  The second problem can be solved by being mindful of their measure. I can work on starting each match with an internally verbalized inventory of my opponent - "Slightly taller person with a slightly shorter sword and dagger", "much shorter person with case of much shorter weapons", etc. This will force me to be mindful of their distance.
• In this example, "slightly" means about 3 inches in terms of blade length and 2 inches in terms of height, whereas a lack of descriptor means 4+ inches of difference in terms of height, or 6+ inches of difference in terms of blade length. Donovan is equivalent height to me or slightly taller than me, depending on what shoes I'm wearing. Doroga is taller than me.
• Here, we care about relations more than exact values. If I have a longer weapon and they are not taller than me, I can likely throw shots all day and have a very narrow area to defend against counter-attacks. If this isn't the case, I have to Actually Fence.
• I have grown to be hesitant and less likely to recognize and seize upon moments where I can win.
• This is likely because I have been working the defensive side of things more than the offensive side of things - "how can my opponent confound my parries". In order to solve this without losing what I've gained in terms of defensive skill, I need to start recognizing German-style "master strokes", which allow me a defense and a counter-attack in the same tempo.
• More, I need to recognize when one of the elements of Six Elements Theory isn't applicable, and what portion of the Perfect Defensive Paradigm I can break from because of it.
• Perfect Defensive Paradigm is essentially performing my interpretation of Line in Cross or Narrowing - a parry that carries my hilt slightly out of my presence, and takes my tip off-line in an arc that prevents opposition.
• This is a homework assignment. I need to look back at my original Six Elements Theory post and read when each Element is inapplicable. Then, take that and develop a counterattack for it. From there, drill the counterattacks into my fencing, either by drilling or by mindful and focused fighting.
• My style has grown too diversified. Every time I fence, it's a game of "what bullshit can I make up centered around these base principles". This slows me down.
• I need to re-develop a core set of techniques that are my go-to techniques for Just Winning Bouts.
•  I miiiiight be concentrating too much on defense.
• Keep an eye on this. While "defense is most important" is a very useful philosophy for growth, going too far into that world means not winning.
• I am very used to doing cuts with my shorter sword.
• Cuts are still possible with the longer sword, but I need to figure out exactly the threshold where they become practical, for the longer weapon. This means drilling my hilt-first approaching-defenses some, because that's where the fastest cuts come from.
•  People don't seem to believe my feints any more.
• This might be just that people have gotten better, but my old strategy of "twitch at people to make openings" doesn't seem to be working well. It might be a side-effect of me moving overall slower when I fence these days, but I need to figure out why this is.
• If it's just that people are fencing in a more technically sound manner, I need to make smaller feints and be able to take advantage of smaller reactions.
• If people are just not trained to respond to my feints any more, this doesn't mean I need to re-train them - it means that my feints weren't a well-founded set of techniques in the first place, and I need to understand better how, in the midst of a single bout, to figure out the "volume" of feint that someone needs to see in order to respond, and how large that response will be.
• This one is probably the one to go with, since it will be less possible to do as I get back into the groove of things.

So, that's a decently-sized list of things I get the opportunity to learn to do better. That's awesome! I look forward to fencing people and working on these things.

Six Elements Theory

Practice Monday night kinda sucked.

tl;dr: I work through a theory of fencing in this post. If you want to, you can skip to the end and just skip back if something doesn't make sense. I don't mind!

I was trying to work on my recent "6 elements of attack" theory. Essentially, I argue that there are 6 types of attack, and to be defended you must defend against all six of them. Each one has a corresponding way-to-defend, and so an ideal defense includes all six elements of defense. And an ideal attack contains as many of the six elements as possible, to try to take advantage of any flaw in defense.

This post, I want to work on building up this idea which has been in the back of my head. This involves going through all possibilities related to it and branching out ideas,  until we have covered everything necessary for it to be useful.

Those elements of attack are:

• Technique: Attack to absence. In general, the Italians call this a "disengage". Super obvious. When your wrist moves your tip in a circle in front of you, dipping past your opponent's tip or pommel. I call this "attack to absence", since it's literally moving your sword to the place that their sword isn't and attacking.
• Technique: Yielding around. That thing where someone pushes their hilt "outwards", perpendicular to the line between two fencers, while moving their tip "inwards" toward that line.
• Technique: Pulling out. This is when someone's sword moves in a way that moves the tip away from your shoulder, meaning that their tip can get around your sword. If their sword is below your shoulder, this can mean a move straight down. The key here is that the attacker's tip (or pommel in really really really weird circumstances) is the one that makes way for the defender's sword, whereas in Attack to absence, the attacker's tip stays forward, but the blade makes its way around the opponent's tip or hilt. This also means that some things which would normally be called a "disengage" would be considered to be this technique, too.
• Technique: Opposition. This is when someone uses a stronger part of their blade to push through a weaker part of your blade.
• Technique: Attack to slowness. This is when someone attacks right next to your hilt, meaning you can't parry them with your blade. This is mentioned in several manuals, but Fabris is notable for how he talks about doing it.
• Technique: Feinting. This is a weird meta-technique. This is when you half-attempt one of the above techniques in order to attempt to "draw out" a response which leaves an opening. Usually this is done by Italians using disengaging, since the Italian counter to a disengage leaves you open to a second disengage. Note that a feint can be intended to create a small advantage, and further feints can be designed to create slightly larger advantages until you are stabbed, which is why you need to react to a feint. Just, you need to react smaller, as we will cover later.

And the elements of defense:

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse. Italians do this by default when changing lines, since their hand stays largely in the same place, but their blade moves. In general, you want to cut in a way that gets as close to perpendicular to their blade when your blades impact. This can be weird sometimes.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back. This is what happens when an Italian executes a "transport". It also happens in Thibault a few times. This can be done by moving your hand backwards and maintaining your blade's angulation, or it can be executed by moving your tip backwards by moving your wrist. The former is probably better.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Countered by: Following their blade. This means you need to extend your tip farther, or move forward, or lean, or something to prevent them from getting "out".
• Technique: Opposition.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact. If you let your tip come off-line, you can refuse them contact with weaker parts of your blade, or at least force them to come off-line as well if they wish to try pushing through your blade. This happens a lot in various dialects of LVD.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing. This is changing the relationship between your sword and your body, usually by pushing your sword in one direction while moving your body in another. You can also do just one or the other of those - a sideways void while not moving your sword counts as this, so long as your sword or hilt is between you and their blade. Fabris does this a lot, too, but more on this later.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed. This means that if someone is in a position and they move to disengage, your action needs to defend against both the line that you previously had closed, as well as the line they seem to be attacking on now. It amounts to knowing exactly what you are defending against, and how they can take advantage of your openings. Honestly, it boils down to good technique.

In theory, those should be the basic elements of fencing. Unfortunately, time is a thing too, and frequently we can't perceive what our opponent is doing until they are finished doing it. So we need to figure out how to perceive these six techniques as early as we can.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact. Their blade is completely and very suddenly gone!
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure. This signifies that they are no longer trying to push through your blade, and now want to get around it and let your blade fall toward their hilt.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact. It's hard to pull out or away when blade contact has been established, so the best way to pull out is to avoid it in the first place. This can be accomplished by maintaining distance, using a refused stance, or moving their blade parallel to yours.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade. This is what allows them to push through. This can be accomplished by snaking around behind your sword, too, which is an altogether more effective way of moving toward your tip.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt. There is no reason they would do so otherwise, since coming on-line with your hilt leaves them terribly open to counter-attacks.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away. If your opponent couldn't actually strike you if they followed through on their newly-attempted attack, it has to be a feint. Anything else is committed enough that it can be countered. In general, this is dictated by distance. Note that you still need to act on a feint, since a feint can be used to cover for a movement toward a better position, but the action you need to take is different.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.

But even beyond this, we need to be able to confirm to ourselves that our defense succeeded, even as we prepare our next defense and consider executing our next attack.  Fortunately for us, none of these defensive techniques is mutually exclusive with any others. As well, most of these are touch-based cues, which are processed faster than visual information.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact. A disengage is a quick movement, involving moving your tip as fast as it can move. This will result is a sharp, clanging impact that will reduce the amount that your sword is rotating.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact. The yield doesn't have a huge amount of force to it in general, and hopes to make its way using reach rather than strength. So a yield, when blocked, presents nice, smooth contact.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact. When pulling out, they are presenting you with their weak. You will be able to feel your weak pressing against their weak.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure. Either they will match your force by winding behind your sword, or they will not get there in time and the possible pressure they can exert will diminish as you move your stronger part of your blade closer to their weaker part.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Success cue: Thudding impact. This impact will not result in your blade rotating, really, since most of their force will be focused forward toward your hilt and body.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues. Less pressure, that sort of thing.

Of course, attacking is necessary to win a bout. So we need to figure out the minimum cue to understand if we have succeeded or failed at our attack, as well, so we can proceed to our next attack or defense as necessary. Similarly, these should ideally have touch-based cues for success or failure, so we can act with as much speed as possible.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement. So if your disengage stops before you would have stopped it yourself, your attack to absence has failed.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement. Basically, if your tip doesn't feel like it's quite going in as far as you need for it to, your yielding attack has likely failed.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade. This means that you haven't actually succeeded at pulling out, since they are still in contact with your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt. If they have adjusted their blade to overcome your attack by opposition, that means they are in a position that forces your sword to either give up its strength, or slide toward the strong part of their blade.  
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line. This is similar to the failure cue for Pulling out, but where you're probably moving backwards for Pulling out, in this case you are moving forwards. They are essentially acting as a bullfighter and allowing your forward momentum to carry you past them.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response. The point of a feint is to draw an exaggerated response so that you can execute a counter to their defensive technique. If they don't respond, or they respond in a very small way, then your feint has probably failed. 

Beyond even this, we need to know how to counter our opponent's defenses. While a perfectly-executed defense might not be easy to take advantage of, all defenses create openings. And for each defense, there is a particular way to best use those openings.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Counter-counter: An even smaller Attack to absence. The way absence works is by trying to rotate around the physical limits of their weapon. If they have rotated their weapon to defend against your attack to absence, that means there's likely an opening on the other side of their weapon now. Unfortunately, the defensive action is smaller than the offensive action here, so there's no guarantee this will work. This is where mid-blade disengages tend to come into play, for the offense.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Opposition / Winding. If you have executed the Yield around, then you have gotten your sword "behind" theirs. This means it is will be hard for them move the strong of their blade in the way of the weak of yours. This is similar to the German concept of "winding", in that you wrap your blade around their blade to make it impossible for them to gain back opposition.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to slowness. By virtue of your opponent extending their blade, they are presenting you with their hilt. This means it is very easy to attack toward their hilt in response, especially if they are not in a position that allows for a good void. 
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Counter-counter: Yielding around / Winding. These counter each other in an exciting way. As stated above, the combination of Yielding around and Opposition leads to a concept the Germans call "winding". It is likely that you and your opponent will get into a stalemate here, in which you need to abandon your plan and do something else. 
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Counter-counter: Pulling out, depending on distance. Attacks to slowness imply more forward movement than a lot of other actions here. If you are still far enough out, though, you can Pull out. The sideways movement of Voiding / Pushing from your opponent makes this easier. As you get closer, Pulling out becomes less of an option. In this case, the changing relationship between blade and body becomes harder to take advantage of, and you must use a different technique. Of course, a moulinet, which can arguably be either Pulling out or an Attack to absence depending on execution, remains possible.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Counter-counter: Redoubling. So, executing the same attack, but bigger. If your opponent doesn't move at all, then you are likely to catch them off-guard. If they move a bit, but not too much, they can still defend themselves.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response.

So as you can see, this leads to sequences. Attack to absence forms its own little loop. Opposition and Yielding around form a loop called Winding. Pulling out and Attack to slowness have a bit of a looping quality, but eventually lead something else due to the nature of distance. Feinting has its own loop with true attacks, due to the nature of attacks, but that is weird and not the kind of loop we're looking for here.

There's also a relationship between Attacks to absence and Feinting, since the size of your Attack to absence will decrease over time. As the size of these Attacks decreases, the size of what qualifies as a Feint decreases as well. So while a tiny twitch might not be useful at the start of a fight as a feint, after three disengages it might be useful as one.

We can also look at the defensive and offensive actions and guards that make those actions easier. For the defense, this allows us to change and fortify our stance based on what we think our opponents will do. For the offense, that allows us to choose our attack based on what our opponent's stance is.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Offensive guard: Angled guards. The idea is that if your guard is angled such that your sword can cross with your opponent's sword, you can use your wrist to move your blade above or below your opponent's guard.
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Defensive guard: Counter-angled guards. A similar thing. If you have no crossing with your opponent's guard, it's hard to cut into the reverse of their disengage motion. The important part here is that you know what direction they can move their sword, and how to execute a counter-movement.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to absence.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Offensive guard: Arm or body pulled back. This means you have distance to extend your arm and bend at your wrist, to suddenly gain distance and angle around your opponent's blade.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Defensive guard: Blade away from the diameter. This means that your blade or tip is already away from the diameter line between your shoulder and your opponent's shoulder.
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Opposition / Winding.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Offensive guard: Arm has room to pull sword back. This means you can pull your sword away from their shoulder, even if it's not straight backwards. Reserving some space to move forward as well is useful in order to make it harder decide what your end target is.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Defensive guard: Arm and sword extended. If they can't get out, then they can't pull out.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to slowness.
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Offensive guard: Blade "over the opponent's blade". This means that your blade is angled in a way that makes it take longer to regain opposition, and the process of regaining opposition might just put you back on-line.
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Defensive guard: Mid-blade at or near the edge of profile. This means that if they try to strike through your mid-blade or the weak of your blade, they will miss you. The idea is to force your opponent to place their weak on your strong if they want to attack you.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Counter-counter: Yielding around / Winding.
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Offensive guard: Attacker's hilt in-line with defender's hilt. This means that you can push your hilt in toward the defender's's hilt, and the line through their hilt will connect with their body.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Defensive guard: Hilt near or past the edge of the profile, arm extended. This would allow you to have less distance to move your body or your sword to push their sword past your profile. The extension of your arm means that your profile is effectively smaller. Having your hilt near the edge of your profile means that there's really only one direction that they can strike toward your body, near your hilt.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Counter-counter: Pulling out.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Offensive guard: A compromise among several. Feinting works by overwhelming your opponent with options. Don't do any particular guard which would let them know what you will do.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Defensive guard: Counter-guard. Make sure to be in a guard that can defend against all options that they have.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Counter-counter: Redoubling.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response. 

Beyond this, there are things which we can call "master-strokes", in the German tradition. The Germans tend to believe that the person attacking has the advantage. In order to win from the defense, you need to perform an attack that also defends you, which is difficult to do. The Italians would call this a single-tempo parry-riposte, in some circumstances. You do need to do a tiny bit of prediction, to know what your opponent will do. Master-strokes are good to execute if your opponent over-commits to a technique.

• Technique: Attack to absence.
• Offensive guard: Angled guards
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Defensive guard: Counter-angled guards.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to absence.
• Example master stroke: Single-tempo parry/riposte. This is a largely Capoferro thing. The idea is that you extend and counter-rotate into their disengage, attacking to their body. Thibault also has a similar concept. This can be difficult to do if the attacker's blade is very low. This is a special case of Attack to slowness.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Offensive guard: Arm or body pulled back.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Defensive guard: Blade away from the diameter
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Opposition / Winding.
• Example master stroke: Leaning thrust with shoulder away from the diameter and elbow bent. Here, you lean forward while pulling your arm to the side so that your weapon moves forward, while your hilt and blade create space. Your face will likely be closer to their body than your hilt. This is a special case of Opposition.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Offensive guard: Arm has room to pull sword back.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Defensive guard: Arm and sword extended.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to slowness.
• Example master stroke: Circling thrust. This is essentially pushing their blade in a circle, while presenting your tip to their body as a threat. They may pull back far enough that you can't continue to do that, in which case you should probably cut them or stab them or some such when they are so far back that they can't attack. This is a special case of Cutting to the reverse.
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Offensive guard: Blade "over the opponent's blade".
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Defensive guard: Mid-blade at or near the edge of profile.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Counter-counter: Yielding around / Winding.
• Example master stroke: Jam your hilt into their mid-blade and attack. Essentially, you want to short-circuit the opposition game by putting your hilt onto their mid-blade. This lets you win opposition handily and frequently cut to them. This is a special case of Opposition.
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Offensive guard: Attacker's hilt in-line with defender's hilt.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Defensive guard: Hilt near or past the edge of the profile, arm extended.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Counter-counter: Pulling out.
• Example master stroke: Thread through their blade. In this case, you thrust in the direction of their blade redirecting your tip toward their body at the last moment. Your hilt will likely follow a curved path through space, since you are pushing their blade with your hilt and quillons. This is a special case of Opposition.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Offensive guard: A compromise among several.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Defensive guard: Counter-guard.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Counter-counter: Redoubling.
• Example master stroke: Just attack. If a feint isn't sincere, you can simply attack them and be fine. If you can't tell whether or not it's sincere, you can't take that gamble.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response. 

In reality, the master-strokes listed here aren't a full list. There are many other ways to attack and defend at the same time. While I think that the earlier parts of this post are very good, the deeper into the rabbit-hole we get, the farther from certainty we go. As well, I have an obvious bias toward using Opposition to attack people. I can imagine many different master-strokes that involve many different types of attack. So let's leave things at the previous bullet-point list, shall we?

THE END OF THIS POST

This is our end result, with the example master-strokes removed.

• Technique: Attack to absence, aka Disengage
• Offensive guard: Angled guards
• Defensive cue: Sudden lack of blade contact.
• Countered by: Cutting to the reverse.
• Defensive guard: Counter-angled guards.
• Success cue: Hard, sudden rotation-ceasing blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to absence.
• Attacking failure cue: Arrested movement.
• Technique: Yielding around.
• Offensive guard: Arm or body pulled back.
• Defensive cue: Change in direction of blade pressure.
• Countered by: Pulling your hand away from the center line or back.
• Defensive guard: Blade away from the diameter
• Success cue: Smooth, sliding blade contact.
• Counter-counter: Opposition / Winding.
• Attacking failure cue: "Pulling" movement.
• Technique: Pulling out.
• Offensive guard: Arm has room to pull sword back.
• Defensive cue: Avoiding blade contact.
• Countered by: Following their blade.
• Defensive guard: Arm and sword extended.
• Success cue: Continued pressing contact.
• Counter-counter: Attack to slowness.
• Attacking failure cue: Continued pushing against your blade.
• Technique: Opposition.
• Offensive guard: Blade "over the opponent's blade".
• Defensive cue: Movement toward your blade.
• Countered by: Coming off-line with contact.
• Defensive guard: Mid-blade at or near the edge of profile.
• Success cue: Sudden reduction or stasis in pressure.
• Counter-counter: Yielding around / Winding.
• Attacking failure cue: Sliding toward their hilt.
• Technique: Attack to slowness.
• Offensive guard: Attacker's hilt in-line with defender's hilt.
• Defensive cue: Coming on-line with your hilt.
•  Countered by: Voiding / Pushing.
• Defensive guard: Hilt near or past the edge of the profile, arm extended.
• Success cue: Thudding impact.
• Counter-counter: Pulling out.
• Attacking failure cue: Blade movement off-line.
• Technique: Feinting.
• Offensive guard: A compromise among several.
• Defensive cue: Attack that could not succeed / is too far away.
• Countered by: Keeping your previous line closed.
• Defensive guard: Counter-guard.
• Success cue: Smaller versions of other defensive success cues.
• Counter-counter: Redoubling.
• Attacking failure cue: Small response.

And this should be a full system list of what makes a valid fencing strategy. This isn't a "how to fence" - it's more of a blueprint for constructing valid strategies, and seeing where a particular system might fall down.

Next post, I plan to do a take-down of a few systems and show how they can be modeled in this system.


Edit: Oh shoot, I forgot to include "conditions that will make this technique work without question". Oh well.