Practice Report, and Thibault-esque Position/Find/Gain/Attack

Fencing was good. I'm attempting to budget better, so I didn't grab any of the pre-fencing snacks that I normally would. This resulted in me having less energy during practice than I normally would. This is expected, and I'm trying to lose weight anyway, so it is fine. It does mean I am likely to derive less per-practice improvement, but again, I will survive it.

I did mostly Thibault things this practice. I spent time trying to do the Thibault-esque position/find/gain/attack to people, and it was interesting. I learned a number of things, which can be summed up into a single-ish point that I will mention later in this post.

LATER IS NOW.

*****

So, from working Thibault these few years, I've come to understand that his basic flow of action is very similar to the Italian flow of action. The Italian flow of action, as I understand it, goes something like this.

1. Position
1. This means to get in whatever guard or counter-guard your particular master specifies.
2. Find the blade
1. This means a small gain of their blade, to make it harder for them to hit you at very large range. "To make it harder" is somewhat ambiguous and squishy. Hard to define.
3. Gain the blade
1. This means to create a larger angle with your sword while moving forward a bit, to make it even harder for them to hit you. This is because you are likely progressing into or close to the range in which they can hit you with a leaning thrust, rather than a lunging or passing thrust. This is faster, so you need to make their attack take even longer.
4. Attack
1. This is mostly self-explanatory, but it's hard to say exactly what ways one can attack with assured safety from all positions. Usually this is, in Spanish terms, an attack by detachment.

In Thibault, the flowchart is similar. I have filled in many details using experience, which I give to you now. I use Italian terms when applicable, since "defensive actions at first instance" is very unwieldy. I realize I should be using different words here, but please bear with me because I view these as being very similar to the Italian things.

1. Step to the edge of measure
1. This has a very specific flow, described very early in the book. Swing your blade left and low as you step forward with your right foot, swing it right and usually low while stepping with the left foot, and then step with the right foot, ending in the intended position.
2. This step wouldn't exist, except that a number of plays later in the book involve altering the way that we do this, especially the blade positioning when stepping with the left foot.
2. Position
1. This is more explicit than the Italian way of things. Thibault specifies a number of counter-guards based on the position of your opponent's sword. The idea is to get to a place where you can step into the next bit.
2. Generally, this is where you get to a position where your blade is parallel to their blade and below it.
3. Find the blade
1. Thibault's plates imply that you want to get to a place in which you will be defended from a direct thrust by your quillons. Specifically by your quillons. Your blade can be used to position their blade to reduce the area they can strike, but the direct attack should be defended against using your quillons.
2. In general, you want to try to position your quillons as close to perpendicular to the line drawn by their blade from their hilt to infinity as possible.
3. Your blade should limit where they can go. Your quillons should defend against their direct attacks.
4. Gain the blade
1. Here, we need to transition to using our blade to defend ourselves. We want to transition from quillons-perpendicular-to-their-blade to blade-perpendicular-to-their-blade. This is because we're entering a closer measure, which requires wider defense.
2. This is usually done because an opponent either starts in a guard that doesn't allow one to find the blade, or they transition to such.
5. Attack
1. In general, we need to be able to place their blade in a position that allows us to attack them with our blade, quillons, or off-hand in a perpendicular position to defend us against their counter-attack, or their blade in a position that doesn't allow them to counter-attack.

That is the basics. However, to do well and to win, you need to know how to cut corners and when one can transition early, or entirely ignore steps.

Thibault's first play in his book shows only positioning, finding the blade, and attacking, because that's all that is needed against a passive opponent in the Destreza right-angle stance. Positioning is barely touched on because you adopt the "default" position which is described in detail previously. Stepping into measure isn't mentioned at all for the same reason. Gaining the blade simply doesn't happen because it isn't necessary.

In searching for these places I can skip steps, I've started classifying Italians based roughly on how angled-up their blade is.

• If my opponent is almost parallel to the ground with their blade, with their arm mostly extended, I can probably do all of the steps here defined, though a little bit less of Finding than with a Diestro in the Right Angle posture.
• If my opponent is less parallel with the ground, perhaps between 25º and 55º from the ground and with a correspondingly lowered arm and hand, Finding becomes irrelevant. By the time I get into the range in which I can Find the blade, I am within their lunge range. I should skip finding, and go directly from Positioning into Gaining.
• If my opponent is even less parallel to the ground than that, I honestly am not sure what to do. Maybe I need to just skip directly from Positioning into attacking? This is how I lose repeatedly to Zohane.

 Two particular plays seem relevant. These are adapted to a standard Italian or Spanish grip, rather than Thibault's grip.

*****

Against one of the first type of Italians, I Find their blade from the inside line. My sword is in a hybrid terza-quarta such that my blade is above theirs, but my quillon still blocks the direct line of ingress. I feel a disengage and immediately lunge, bringing  my sword into a low quarta, such that my quillons block the most direct path of their sword, and the strong of my blade blocks the less direct path. This allows me to stab them, countering their disengage. I have thus skipped the "Gain" step and move directly into "Attack".

*****

Against the second type of Italian, I position myself such that my blade is parallel to theirs, sloped downwards toward the ground. If they are attempting to gain the inside line, I'm somewhere between terza and quarta. If they are attempting to gain the outside line, I'm somewhere between quarta and what would be called "quinta" by logical and rotational progression. In the German tradition, it would be the hand position of Left Ochs.

Regardless, my quillons are perpendicular to the line of their blade, and I am just barely hidden from some of the direct thrusts they could perform. While stepping forward, I flip my blade around theirs, such that my false edge cuts into the false edge of their blade, leading with my sword's tip and immediately transitioning to a position where my blade is perpendicular to their blade. Here, I have transitioned directly from "Position" into "Gain".

*****

ADDITIONAL EDITED-IN-AFTERWARDS PLAY

When someone has significantly more reach than their opponent, they can frequently ignore the "positioning" step, and go from a relaxed lack-of-a-guard into an immediate attack.

*****

All that said, I think the next evolution of my fencing is to look actively for places and times that allow me to skip or combine steps. As a minor aside, I believe that this sort of "combining steps" is what the Germans mean by their definition of the "master stroke", which combines offense and defense.

I would be interested to talk to people about places where they find that they are able to combine steps in similar ways.

The Capoferro Hierarchy seems like a similar thing, depending on distance and timing. I feel like there's a lot of stuff in there that could be mined for more information. As an example - if you and your opponent are at a somewhat long range and your opponent executes a very committed cavazione, it isn't super possible for them to abort to a duo-tempi parry-riposte, which is the traditional counter-counter. But if they are a bit less committed, they can execute the duo-tempi parry-riposte. It would be an interesting study to find where the borders of each counter and each counter-counter exist, to see when they are viable or not viable.

Anyhow. That's the end of this post. Your homework is to tell me about things you do in your fencing to "skip a step". Tell me the thing!