LUPOLD'S CREATE-A-STYLE RECIPE SHEET

My intention here is for you to use this to create a style for single rapier or rapier and dagger. I honestly like the idea of using rapier and dagger, because daggers remove a lot of messy infighting situations. Also, a lot of sword-and-dagger styles are more universally-applicable. But single rapier is more basic option which is more educational.

This process will create a static "style" or "stance". An opening position and a set of techniques which "hang together" well. As a note - one master might have multiple of what I'm calling a "style" in their book. But there isn't a good word for an individual one of those, so I'm going to call it a style.

Before we create a style, it is useful to consider what we like to do. Most people have specific actions or positions that their brains and bodies enjoy more than others. Furthermore, our subconscious minds can have a lot of opinions about the correct way to do things, and it is useful to try to take them into account. In my experience, this is usually expressed in a "this feels wrong" way, even when you think that the thing is correct.

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1. EXERCISE: What feels "natural"? Guard and First Technique.

So, as the first step, grab a sword-like object like a ruler or something, stand up, and figure out three things.

a. How do you like to stand in guard?
b. What is the first action that comes to mind to do, from that guard?

As a note, These are intended as quick, rough ideas rather than end products.

Unless you have a very strong ability to visualize an opponent spatially, I suggest taking a photo or video of yourself in each of those positions or movements, with your camera facing you, at head-level or maybe a bit lower.

From there, we start exploring the philosophy of the style we are going to create.

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2. EXERCISE: Consider the above.

a. If the action in 1b was an attack, is it the sort of attack that you would throw while approaching an opponent, or in response to them approaching you?

b. If 1b was not a direct attack, do you imagine it as a response to their action, or as an aggressive movement you perform to take up space?

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Based on your answer to this exercise, the style we are creating will be classified as approaching/receiving, and attacker/defender.

So if the action from 1b was an attack where you take their sword with your dagger, the style we are creating would be an "approaching attacker" style.

If the action from 1b was to gain your opponent's blade hard and see how they react, it would be an "approaching defender" style.

If the action from 1b was a retreating lunge where you parry their sword with your dagger, it would be a "receiving attacker" style.

If the action was to let them come to you and then parry them, it would be a "receiving defender" style.

I personally tend to favor "approaching attacker" and "receiving attacker" styles, but other styles definitely have merit. There are also ambiguities about these classifications, but we're just going to use them as a starting point, so don't worry about it too much.

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From here, the next few steps fork based on the approaching/receiving attacker/defender classifications. At a high level, we're just taking the stance and the first technique, and trying to figure out things which would compliment that technique.

If you don't want to read through this heinously long section, just consider the following:

1. What do I like to do?
2. What can my opponent do about it?
3. What can I do about the thing my opponent does?

If you want to skip all this bullshit, go down to the "SKIP ALL THIS BULLSHIT" section.

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3. EXERCISE: A Second? (and Third?) Technique

A. Approaching

a. Attacker

If you find yourself tending to want to attack, you should consider what positions you expect your opponents to be in. There is no need to be exhaustive. Feel free to imagine some specific fencer as a "default" and proceed from there. If you are not able to visualize your opponent spatially, ask to take a photo of them in guard and use it for this exercise.

If you chose "attacker", then you should consider how you are going to use the attack from 1b to strike your imaginary opponent's openings.

If your imaginary opponent doesn't have an opening which can be reached by that attack, consider how to convince them to open up that spot in particular. This will be the second action of your style. There is a set of questions to help think this through, after this.

If your opponent does have an opening there, consider what the most "obvious" thing for them to do to defend against your attack is. Generally, this is the thing which involves the least movement of the body and blade possible. Consider the following questions from the perspective of where they are when they have defended against your attack.

i. Do they have other openings? If so, are they open enough that you could strike them from your default stance or abort your attack into an attack to that location? Might as well add that in as an attack.
ii. If no clear other openings, is there a place you can push an attack through their sword to maybe hit them? In this case, it is most important to be defended against their sword and disorder them. If you do it enough times, they will need to adapt their guard, and you can return to the first technique.
iii. If no clear openings and their weapon is not available to attack through, are there harassing threats you can make, such as trying for hand or wrist shots?
iv. In a worst-case scenario, look at the next part and crib something from the Approaching Defenders.

Ideally, after those questions, you will have a Second Technique. We'll get back to you, Approaching Attacker!

b. Defender

If you chose "defender", your task is a bit different from the attackers. Your "First Technique" is probably the thing that will happen if your opponent just stands still forever - you bind their blade, or beat it, or go for a disarm, or something like that. Something which gains you space and time, rather than the immediate gratification of stabbing a motherfucker. Regardless - it is usually a proactive action toward their blade. If it is not, then I have failed in my assessment and you should go to the "receiving defender" section immediately.

A receiving defender controls the timing of the bout by the implicit threat they present when approaching. This forces your opponent to do something, anything. Very frequently, this will be an attack.

Get out that photo of yourself. Look at it. Consider where is "open" on you. Is your blade low enough that someone could strike above it to your chest? Is your blade far to one side or the other, making a location for attacking obvious? Keep in mind that there are relatively few "bad" guards. Something that looks like an opening is merely an invitation. It tends to close off other locations, and encourage your opponent to strike at particular openings. This gives you knowledge.

Once you have figured out your most obvious opening, you need to figure out something you can do to defend it. This is generally a large and sword-primary defensive maneuver, like a big ol' windshield-wiper parry or something. It should defend a lot of space and have a large margin of error. You should be able to do it as a reaction without any thought, so it needs to be simple. This is your Second Technique.

After that, go back to looking at that photo. Where is the second most obvious place for an opponent to attack - one which wouldn't be covered by the Second Technique. If you don't see one, move on. If you do, figure out another big ol' obvious parry which feels nice to do, which will cover that opening. That is your Third Technique.

Generally, from that type of big ol' parry or big ol' sword-gain, an attack is difficult. The attack after a big defensive maneuver is improv as much as anything else. Consider what your most obvious attack from the big defensive thing is, and get good at it. Consult the Receiving Defender section for more info.

B. Receiving

As a note - one problem with our game is that in order to win, you have to stab your opponent. This means that in some circumstances, you will need to approach rather than receive. This is especially true when your opponent out-ranges you. It sucks, but it is life.

a. Attacker

As a receiving attacker, your job is generally to convince your opponent to make some kind of a mistake. This is generally done by manipulating time and distance. Moving backwards slowly to make your opponent's attack just a split second slower, or other mean tricks.

Consider what your First Technique is responding to. Is it an attack to your left shoulder? To your belly? to your face? Regardless of what it is, you should look at that photo of yourself in guard. Make sure that the attack you are responding to with the First Technique looks enticing. Stand in front of a mirror, adjusting your guard in small ways to make it look more or less open. The more something is open, the more someone will assume it is bait.

A good complimentary technique for this is a response to something that isn't an attack. The idea here is to increase the amount of cognitive pressure on your opponent, to give them less brain-space to realize that your obvious opening is a trap. Thus, they attack into it, and you can use your First Technique.

Generally, an opponent approaching you goes something like this:

i. They walk up to measure.
ii. They get in guard.
iii. They approach a bit.
iv. They find your blade, increasing their safety a little.
v. They gain your blade in preparation to throw an attack.
vi. They attack.

Between each of those steps is a moment where your opponent's brain is switching gears from one thing to another. And in the moment of your opponent's brain switching gears, they are paying less attention to what you are doing. There are studies to quantify this, but we're just going to leave it at that for the moment.

Choose two of those moments. Make a study of what it looks like when people are finishing up each step in that process. Try to find the rhythm of those actions. Attacking during these moments is all about speed, so try to work on making your attack as fast and efficient as possible, while blocking the most obvious responses. That is your Second Technique.

A good candidate for a Third Technique is to throw an attack from when you are doing these things. So for exmple, you walk into measure and immediately throw an attack without getting into guard.

b. Defender

Receiving Defender - the thing I'm worst at. Also, I'm running out of attention span to write this, so this is gonna be quick.

In general, the receiving defender wants to have the best possible defense. I would say that invitations aren't necessarily in-genre for this style, but two-tempo parry-riposte actions are. The problem with two-tempo parry-riposte actions is that generally, your opponent has an idea of how they are going to exit if their attack fails. Fortunately, most opponents don't think much beyond that.

Look at the photo of your guard. Imagine your opponent attacking, and then you performing the parry which is your First Action. From there, imagine the fastest, most obvious, most direct attack. Then, imagine what your opponent can do about that attack. Consider what you can do to counter this.

In general, an opponent will retreat or otherwise desperately try to parry after their attack fails. You will need to run them down. You will need to practice the timing of people's desperate parries, and ways to get around them or through them. It is a hard time, being a Receiving Defender.

You will also need to integrate one or two more parries into your game, because it is unlikely that a single parry will be enough. Do the same exercise of running through a layer or two of chess-game of what your opponent can do. When doing this, try to keep broad strokes - if you can, try to make sure your actions work against a wide variety of parries and counter-attacks.

In-fighting is a strange and mysterious thing, but it can be useful here. As can dagger-thrusts.

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"SKIP ALL THIS BULLSHIT"

So, you have constructed the skeleton of a style. Yay! What do you do with it?

Bring it to practice and make a specific intentional effort, every practice, to use it against at least a few people. Note down how you get stabbed. Fencing has a lot of variance to it, so it takes a lot of examples of a thing to get good data.

Keep in mind - this is a good situation for the use of plus-minus-plus. Because with too many areas for improvement, it is easy to forget about one thing before it is dealt with.

After practice, think about one of the ways you got stabbed multiple times. Or try to think about situations that maybe look like you could have taken advantage of something. Try to figure out which of the following categories it fits in:

1. I can make a small adjustment to my guard or how I perform a technique, and I will be able to stab/not get stabbed.
2. I can make an adjustment, but that adjustment will open a hole in my technique that can be exploited.
3. My style is completely unprepared to deal with this.

If something falls in 1, that's great. You can make that adjustment.

If something falls in category 2, it is likely that you will need to add a technique. Stealing something from the four sections above might be useful. Especially from the sections that do not match your style.

If something falls in category 3, adding a technique might help. However, it is possible that you have run into a central problem in fencing, and you will need to make larger changes beyond the scope of this article. Running into this sort of problem is usually what causes me to read historical masters or try to make up a new style or any one of a thousand questionably-useful things.

One key thing - each practice, only make at most one adjustment to the style you are working on. Again - fencing is a high-variance sport, so you need a lot of data of a narrow set of things in order to draw good conclusions. For examples, I believe that the posts tagged "Focused Work" are where I wrote about that on this blog.

Ideally, try to keep the number of techniques in the style as low as possible. Studies show that when someone is trying to react to a larger set of cues, their reaction time slows down. As well, that point I keep harping on about fencing being a high-variance sport. Doing 100 techniques a single time each gives very little data except "it is possible for this to work". Doing 3 techniques 30 times gives a reasonable distribution of what is or is not working.

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It is important to note as well - you don't need to stick rigidly to the techniques. There will always be improvisation after the initial clash of blades. But understanding the first things you do extremely well allows for a better understanding of what comes later, and allows for better improvisation.

GOOD LUCK.

If you want an example of a constructed style, I can provide a link to one. But I'm not gonna do that right now, because I want to go for a run.