Smash Bros, rather than Fencing, and Hard Reads

 It has been a long time since I made a blog post! Let's make one today.

Since the pandemic started, I have been doing basically zero fencing. A little bit of stray fencing work here and there, but no consistent practice and nothing really useful for improving my fencing. But what I have been doing is playing Smash Bros Ultimate.

Smash Bros is a series of fighting games unlike any other. It is highly air-focused and mobile, and has mechanisms in place to put penalties on too much defense and too much offense both. There are a ridiculous number of characters. I play one named Ridley.

Ridley is a giant space-demon-bird. He is a large character, but not heavy - in real terms, that means it's easy to hit them with attacks and relatively easy to kill them at low health. He is a little bit slow, but he has a decent amount of range on his abilities. He is a high-risk-high-reward character.

The reason I say all of this is to talk about a thing called a "hard read".

A hard read is when you do something based on what you think your opponent is going to do, but hasn't done yet. This comes up in fighting games a lot. Characters in fighting games move much faster than people do in real life, and in fighting games people usually have many fewer choices of action at any given time, versus in real life.

Playing Ridley requires a lot of hard reads, but he has the tools to restrict most characters' choice-space in order to let them make those guesses. As well, played correctly you can minimize the cost of failed reads in order to open up your opponent to different guessing games.

Hard reads exist in fencing, too. The place I would say the concept exists most is in Destreza-esque fighting.

When fencing Destreza, one spends a lot of time with their arm fully-extended. This is good, in that it allows you to gain better opposition and have a strong defensive posture. But it makes life more difficult for attacking. Most attacks from a Destreza-esque posture require an opponent to be at a very specific distance - doubly so in a non-C&T SCA context.

This is because we have fewer joints to un-bend for the action of making an attack. When extending into an attack, we need to make sure that it is going to contact in the "line" of the assault. For a thrust, this is forward along the direction of the blade. For a cut, this depends on the particular sword. Regardless, the elbow and shoulder, working together, can radically reposition the attack at any point.

For Destreza, this is not as much the case. For a thrust in LVD, an opponent stepping slightly in one direction or another can completely mess up an attack. Where an Italian might be able to launch an attack that could hit at anywhere along a few feet of length, a Diestro has maybe a foot of length which can really strike at most, if not even more like a point.

This means that a Diestro has to predict exactly where their opponent will be. This is difficult, since in SCA rapier we generally aren't allowed to physically interpose objects to restrict our opponent's movement. So, we need to guess.

In order to not just lose all the time, this means we need to minimize the cost of a failed guess - that is to say, our defense must be impeccable. In general, when planning an assault in Destreza, I try to make sure that my opponent won't be able to attack me when I attack, regardless of if they are moving backwards or forwards. The right-angle position and extended arm help with this, because they cover so very much space, but they are not perfect by any means.

Bored of writing now, time to be done.

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.

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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.

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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!

Thibault on Italians and Sentiment - the "Short" Version

So I got a copy of the new Greer translation of Thibault's manuscript. It is fantastic, and a joy to read through. I'm going to put down my thoughts and interpretations here, so I can later prove them wrong or flawed in some fashion. I haven't said it in a while, but my standard "I MIGHT BE COMPLETELY OFF BASE HERE, FORM YOUR OWN OPINIONS ABOUT THE WORK PLEASE" disclaimer applies doubly here. These are my own interpretations, and I make no guarantees about their correctness.

I am engaging in my standard method for learning a new thing - I read through to assimilate the basics and a basic idea of the more complex concepts, and then I take it onto the field to see where problems arise. After that, I read parts of the book more thoroughly in order to gain a more in-context understanding than I would have had if I had attempted to understand before trying things out.

*****

My revised Thibault game worked surprisingly well at practice on Monday. There is a new form of taking the blade which Thibault advocates for, when my opponents adopt a more Giganti-ish, hand-held-low posture. Essentially, it involves starting with your sword below theirs, stepping around their sword to the right, and wrapping yours behind theirs. I found myself actually actively pushing their sword downwards, so that it was parallel with the ground. This blocks off their means of ingress by placing their sword outside of your presence, while at the same time blocking the possibility of a disengage because of the circular motion of your tip. Your blade ends up higher than you might expect, but it blocks things off pretty well.

This is followed by a brief pause to make sure they aren't doing anything clever, a giarata step to cover ground, and then a right-foot lunging thrust to cover a truly ridiculous amount of ground. This solves a problem I've previously had when practicing the Spanish arts, in that Italians can move backwards faster than I can move forwards in a circle.

If they attempt a yielding-around thrust (which Thibault calls a "curved thrust"), then your response should be to abort the giarata-step and thrust, catching their sword with your inside quillon.

So, to go over it in a simpler way, with pictures. In all of these, Alexander (the person fighting in Thibault's tradition) is on the right, while Zachary (in this case a Giganti-esque fighter. More to the point, he is a stand-in for anybody who fights from a position which keeps their blade back somewhat, blade low, and tip higher than the hilt). I'm saying that this isn't a perfect Giganti or Capoferro, but it can be generalized to deal with them. Or many other non-Fabris Italians.

The front set of figures is the first position. Alexander drops his sword low, while taking a collecting step forward. In my brief experience, this collecting step hasn't been truly necessary, but I can see how it would help in the next bit.

The set of figures behind them shows the transition. Alexander takes a wide step, mostly to the right, while wrapping his sword around Zachary's, tip-first. Note that, in relation to the circle on the floor, Alexander has moved very far to the right.

At this point, Alexander pauses for a moment. This is (in my brain) to allow Alexander to confirm that yes, he has the positioning he wants. His opponent has allowed him to step and position his sword in the way he wants. It's a one-tempo pause, to use demi-Italian terminology, to allow the perceptions to catch up to the world.

The right plate here is essentially the same as the back plate above. Alexander has what an Italian would call "opposition" over his opponent's blade.

The left plate, cut off by the page boundary here, shows the giarata-step I've been talking about. Alexander maintains opposition over his opponent's sword and rotates his body away from his opponent, stepping backwards with his left foot. This combined hip-leg motion is a preparation for a very, very long step in a moment.

Not pictured here is what to do if your opponent attacks at this point. Essentially, the advice given is to abort the step, planting your left foot, then perform a demi-lunge and thrust with your right foot, being sure to collect their sword with your inside quillon, either upwards or downwards.
 

And of course, we have the result depicted here, the first complete set of people on the right. It looks like they have moved backwards on the circle, but it is important to note that the circle corresponding to the right set of figures is actually the one overlapping the one that Zachary is standing on. It's cut off by the page boundary. In this image, Zachary is completely off of the circle, and Alexander has approached the edge of the circle closest to Zachary.

The left set of figures shows what happens if Zachary executes a complete retreat - moving backwards as fast as possible. Essentially, Alexander and Zachary reset. They are in the same positions, except that they are both now to the left of the original circle that they started on. The circle corresponding to the left set of figures is the circle which Zachary is standing on, in the right set of figures.

To summarize:

• Start with your sword below theirs.
• Wind it above/behind theirs while stepping to the side.
• Stab? Stab. Maybe according to below principles of sentiment? We'll see.

*****

The next thing I've been working on is Sentiment. For those who don't know, "sentiment" is the way that Thibault measures the amount of pressure that your opponent is exerting against your blade. Thibault names nine degrees of sentiment, but two groups of three of them end up meaning the same thing. From weakest to strongest, they are "Dead", "Sentiment", "Alive", "Lively", "Livelier", "Liveliest", "Strong", "Stronger", and "Strongest".

A short version of what to do against each sentiment follows. These are works in progress, and an attempt to collapse a large number of use-cases into a set of principles or rules.

Against "Dead" sentiment, you attack immediately, detaching your sword from theirs, maintaining confidence that you will get past their tip if your distance is correct. This amount of pressure is when your opponent is not pressing against your blade, or isn't even touching your blade. This is will be the most difficult to implement in our game, because a lot of Thibault's defense against "Dead" sentiment comes from stabbing through your opponent, and thus placing your body beyond their tip. In our game, this would lead to double-kills due to late, sloppy bladework. Thibault does mention how to "arrest with courtesy", and thus not stab your opponent but instead put your tip directly in front of your opponent's face. The most likely adaptation for me here will be "arresting without courtesy" - that is to say, drawing my arm back such that my tip stabs them, but does not go through them.

Against "Sentiment" sentiment, you attack immediately, detaching your sword from theirs and stepping away from their sword. Here, the opponent is pressing a little, but not hard enough that their blade will "follow" or "stick" to yours if you move yours away from theirs quickly. This is almost the same as against "Dead" sentiment, but you step away from their blade a bit because their blade will move toward you. Just - not very much.

Against "Alive" sentiment, we begin to perform actual blade-on-blade opposition. This is the bit of sentiment which, as I understand it, involves their blade "sticking" to yours a bit. If you were to go for a straight-in thrust without defense, you would end up being stabbed above your sword, and that would be sad. So here, you continue circling toward their blade, collect it with your quillon, and stab them. Yay.

Against the "Livel(y)(ier)(iest)" sentiments, we bend our arm and thread our tip behind their blade. This allows their blade to slide down ours to our hilt, in a way similar to Fabris Rule For Single Rapier #1. The Lively set of sentiments are the point at which your opponent will be able to push your tip hard enough that you can't really accurately thrust. So we solve the issue by collecting them on our hilt and one of our quillons - Thibault advises the outside one, but that seems harder than using the inside one. This places their sword harmlessly between your sword and your body, in a way that seems kind of scary to do but is really cool.

Alternately, and especially if they increase to this level later in our motions, we can perform a half-circle cut, pulling our sword down and backwards to allow their momentum to carry them away, and then cutting above their sword to the front of their face. This maneuver would be preceded by using our hilt and quillons to transfer them from one side of our body to the other, then performing the cut almost entirely with the wrist.

Against the "Stron(g)(ger)(gest)" sentiments, we cannot simply rely on our hilt to control their blade. To deal with these, we, with our arm still extended, transfer their sword to the other side of us. We explicitly are directed to use our (inside?) quillon to help their sword along on its journey, for some reason. We then continue stepping past them, using our wrist to perform a full-circle cut that exits from below their sword to strike the back of their head. You should be sure to block their sword's path of ingress with your quillon during the early parts of this. In the later parts, you are behind them, so it no longer matters. The cut should be thrown, again, primarily from the wrist.

To summarize:

• First: Take them off the center line using your sword near their tip.
• Dead
• GO GO STAB
• Sentiment
• GO GO STAB with a small void
• Alive
• Good blade opposition yay! Stabby stabby!
• Lively / Livelier / Liveliest
• Collect them on your hilt, between your sword and your body, thrust to face.
• Help their sword to the other side of your body, step through, your sword exits below theirs and enters above, cutting to their face.
• Strong / Stronger / Strongest
• Help their sword to the other side of your body, step through, your sword exits below theirs and enters above, cutting to the back of their head.
• Thibault doesn't explicitly call this out, but I bet you could just step on a chord past the circle and stab them in the flank, as other Spaniards advocate.

 That's what I'm sure will be the first of many posts. Have fun, and good fencing!

Fabris's Fourth Rule on Proceeding With Resolution in Single Sword

My 100th post is approaching, and I want to get it over with so I don't think too hard about "oh noes, what do I do for post 100?".

Because of this, I offer to you this article on Fabris's Fourth Rule on Proceeding With Resolution in Single Sword. I wrote it last June, then didn't post it for some reason. Once again, for my summary of Fabris's Rules on Proceeding With Resolution, see this post.

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Off-line steps are of particular interest to me recently, because I have been studying how to deal with more weapons when you have fewer weapons. Single, shorter rapier versus case of longer rapiers, for example. When you have fewer weapons than your opponent, there are precious few advantages to exploit against them - especially when you also have less reach than your opponent.

We can think of this fight in terms of shifting advantages. If we look at the initial approach into large measure (referring to my list of advantages for defense), this is the list of advantages that the shorter-single-bladed fighter can gain, before entering close measure:

• Obedience
• If your opponent has more range than you, there is a zone in which they are required to attack, in order to be able to attack before you get too close to thrust.
• "Out of Presence"
• This is why we're talking about Fabris's fourth rule - moving to the side forces your opponent to be out of your presence, if briefly.

There are several defensive advantages that they can only partially get, if their opponent is skilled. In particular:

• Tempo
• The longer-ranged opponent should wait until the correct opportunity to strike. Otherwise you are giving up a tempo.
• "Inside their Blade"
• A skilled case fighter should not be allowing you to gain opposition on both of their swords. One, perhaps, but not both.

The rest of the advantages, you by definition don't have, or you can only gain once you get close enough.

Conversely, your opponent has the following:

• Long distance
• Duh.
• Tempo
• They rely on you eventually committing your sword to a strong defense.
• Free implement
• If you only have one sword, they will have one sword free unless they allow you to get very good positioning.

In order to turn the tide, you need to neutralize as many of these advantages as possible, while maintaining your defensive advantages.

Neutralizing tempo is somewhat obvious but hard to execute effectively - don't commit your sword strongly to a defense. Adopt a counterguard, rather than pushing against their sword.

Forcing obedience is a bit trickier. This relies on your own sense of distance, and when your opponent can strike.

This leaves the final two contentious defenses - "Out of Presence" and Free Implement. Free Implement is outside of the scope of this post - it's hard to deal with someone's second sword, and relies on their specific stance.

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On first reading, I interpreted Fabris's fourth rule as follows:

• Keep your sword below your opponent's sword.
• Take an offline step, with a lean in the same direction.
• For example, step left and lean left.
• Check to see if your opponent followed your body with their tip.
• If they did
• Take their sword to the side opposite the direction of your step and step/lean in the direction opposite your original step.
• For example, take their sword to the inside and step to the right, while leaning to the right.
• This will place you in the same line as if you had stepped straight forward at the get-go.
• If they didn't
• Take their sword to the same side as the direction of your step, and step forward, maintaining your lean in the same original direction.
• For example, take their sword to the outside and step directly toward them, while maintaining your lean to the left.
• Stab them, having taken advantage of them being out of your presence.

That doesn't feel quite right though. There are about three tempi in there - one to take the first step, one to check on their direction, and one to take the second step. This gives your opponent far too much time to react.

If instead, we raise our tip during the offline step, this allows us to consider where they are during the step, rather than waiting to see afterwards.. This means we only have to burn two tempi, and makes for a much smoother action.

Fabris Principle 1

So, for future-Lupold, I'm typing up the flowchart that is Fabris Rule 1 for Single Rapier. Fabris digresses a bunch, so I'm rearranging it into a more condensed version, which can be referenced from far measure to close measure.

Starting from the position to the left.

This flowchart should be read considering things at the same level to be alternative options, and things in sub-levels to be steps which follow the parent node.

• Approach your opponent with your sword slightly above theirs. As you approach, you should make sure your hilt eventually reaches the same place on their sword that your tip initially was. So, if they are off-line low, you might need to lower your hilt as you approach.
• As you approach Large Measure...
• If your opponent tries to push your sword off-line without moving...
• Due to your stance's structure, he will be unable to push you away without bringing his tip far off-line. He will not be able to bring it on-line again before you reach his body.
• I guess we continue into close measure here? But we have exited the flowchart at this point.
• NOTE: It seems like this branch ends NEUTRAL, with you NOT STABBING your opponent, but NOT BEING STABBED either.
• If your opponent tries to push your sword off-line while moving backwards...
• Perform a disengage and re-establish your line, continuing forward. Disengage should happen from the wrist.
• Continue moving into Close Measure.
• If your opponent changes stance while moving backwards...
• Follow their sword with yours, continuing in, which will progress you into a closer measure.
• Exit measure, re-establish correct stance, and start from the top of the flowchart.
• As you pass through the weird middle zone between close and far measures...
• Your opponent tries to push your sword off-line...
• Disengage to re-establish the line.
• Continue moving into Close Measure
• Your opponent tries to disengage to gain the line...
• Counter-disengage before your opponent can touch your sword.
• Continue moving into Close Measure.
• If your opponent changes stance while moving backwards...
• Follow their sword with yours, continuing in, which will progress you into a closer measure.
• Exit measure, re-establish correct stance, and start from the top of the flowchart.
• As you approach Close Measure...
• If you are on the Inside Line...
• If your opponent tries to push your sword off-line...
• Roll your hand into seconda and lower your body. Stab your opponent.
• NOTE: It seems like this should be quarta at first glance. But we're not directly opposing the opponent's motion - we're flowing around it.
• If you are on the Outside Line...
• If your opponent tries to push your sword off-line...
• Disengage to the inside line, roll your hand into seconda and lower your body. Stab your opponent.
• NOTE: Here, you are performing a larger yield-around, with more of a lean with your body, it seems. Your body should end up in the outside line, but your sword should be on the inside line.
• If your opponent changes stance while moving backwards...
• Follow their sword with yours, continuing in, which will progress you into a closer measure.
• Exit measure, re-establish correct stance, and start from the top of the flowchart.

Re-Hash

Today will consist of a re-hash of things which I already know.

I want to review my Fabris. This involves going through this post. In terms of Principle 1, I think that Fabris wants you to always go toward the outside line. That's the only way it makes sense, without further context. I also want to apply Principles 3, 5, and 6, which should be relatively straightforward and should work together relatively nicely.

I want to maintain a the idea of "keeping someone out of your presence" in terms of an ellipse. That is to say, everything is fine, as long as you keep their ability-to-stab outside of the ellipse which is the silhouette of your head-and-torso.

Lastly, I have a weird combination-idea that I want to try. It occurs to me that there are two "types" of guards, based on the curvature of your arm. There are "straight" guards and there are "curved" guards. in "curved" guards, your arm-sword-aggregate leaves, then crosses back over the shortest line from your shoulder to your opponent. In "straight" guards, your arm either is along this line, or strays from the line but doesn't re-cross it.

An important note is that an opponent's guard can change between "curved" and "straight" based solely on your movement, without your opponent moving their arm at all.

It seems, at a glance, like for "straight" guards, you generally want to step "away" from their tip, trying to strike them as in Destreza when you thrust to the flank while stepping around, without taking a strong atajo. These are the things I have called "weak" attacks in the past.

For "curved" guards, it seems like one would want to "bar" their tip such that your sword prevents their sword from regaining the shortest-line-from-shoulder-to-you. So you put your sword, perhaps even completely horizontally, between their tip and that shortest-line. Then, you do something like Fabris Principle 6 and maintain that defense, rotating your body to allow your tip to become at liberty and attack them.

It's possible that the stuff from this post would be more relevant, in this regard, but I fear their ability to perform a wide disengage around my sword.

Of course, in the case where your movement changes what "relative curvature" of guard they have, you would need to switch tactics in the middle.

It's a work in progress.

And it makes sense to me.

Let's see if it helps me sword better with my 37" rapier.

Italians and Daggers, Spanish and Body Angle

One peculiarity of the Spanish is that they tend to not use daggers. The Spanish masters mention them, and mention how to use them in passing, but in general they state that the single sword can defeat all combined arms. Why is this? Why do the Italians hold onto usage of the dagger so tightly, whereas the Spanish could take it or leave it? The Spanish use body angle and positioning to do the same thing that the Italians use daggers to do.

Such an artist. This depicts a top-view of fencers.

The point of using a dagger is to block your opponent's angle of attack. You want to force them to disengage around your dagger, which adds to the time it takes them to touch you. This, ideally, gives you time to perform actions like attacking.

This means that a dagger is useless unless you spread it outwards, pushing their blade outside of your body and maintain it there. You gain no utility if you just keep the dagger in front of you. Similarly, if you spread your dagger outwards before you are close enough, you just create an open line for your opponent to stab. So, to prevent stabbings, you need to get past your opponent's tip and then create an angle between your dagger and your body, which prevents their tip from reaching you.

(For the following, I am adopting the convention of arbitrarily using male pronouns for the fighter farther upwards, and female pronouns for the fighter farther downwards.)

For an example of this, see the "YES, GOOD" set of fighters. The person with the dagger cannot be stabbed without a disengage, unless her opponent either moves forward and creates an even larger angle with his sword. This can be countered by the dagger-holding fighter pulling her hand back.

I believe that a similar degree of defense can be accomplished simply from body angle. I have two assumptions to which you must ascribe here, to agree with me:

1. A proper chopping cut requires at least a quarter-turn of the blade, whether of the wrist, the elbow, or the shoulder.
2. A proper draw cut is slow, because it requires you to place the blade, then push or pull it while applying pressure. If you don't place and then pull or push, the blade will bounce ineffectually.
3. The thrust is the ideal attack, faster than either cut unless your sword is far off-line.

So, without further ado...

The person on the bottom was drawn without arms to accentuate the point about body angle.

As we can see, the distance matters. If you are past their tip, then you can prevent them from touching you based solely on body angle. This is something that the Italians do as well - a giarata is an attack which twists your body into a position which can't be easily attacked, while countering with your own thrust.

But yes - here, you're creating an angle that can't be dealt with by rotating your own body. In "NO, BAD", she has rotated wrongly and will be stabbed. In "YES, GOOD", she has rotated correctly and will not be stabbed.

So, now that I've given a hasty set of examples that body angle can defend in a way similar to how a dagger defends, let's look at how this applies to the Spanish.

Pronoun-wise, he has the sword, she's stepping around.

This circle is based on the arm and sword of the fencer with the sword. As you can see, the positions shown for the diestro without the sword follow the same angulation shown in the above "YES, GOOD" set of fighters.

Note that here, the fighter without a sword is assumed to start opposite the fighter with the sword.

(As an aside - the diestro realistically would not maintain the same direction all the way around the circle. When she steps from the top position to the upper-left position, she would step and put the left side of her body forward, allowing her to grab her opponent's hilt or blade and perform a Movement of Conclusion.)

Being more specific - a diestro steps around the circle, keeping the front half of her body closer to the line of her opponent's sword than the back half of her body. This means that her opponent must correct their direction first, then thrust. This effect is exacerbated when the diestro has a shorter sword than her opponent - the circle is tighter, and by the time she has crossed one or two steps around the circle, she is past her opponent's tip.

My phone makes interesting choices about which direction to orient images.

The above image shows the arc of "past the tip" for a long, medium, and short sword. As you can see, the diestro is past the tip after two steps. If her opponent were to step forward at the same time, the arc would move and she would be past the tip after one step with a long weapon.

This is the same movement as the Italian giarata, except that the Spanish fencer gets there faster due to her upright posture, rather than the Italian who has to push his leg around behind him, depending on how squarely his body is situated.

The diestro's movement around the circle accomplishes the goal of being safe from thrusts using body angulation alone, without adding anything else, even an off-hand.

(As an aside, I plan to attempt to use this along with explicit taking-of-the-blade to work on my game of fighting against case fighters with single rapier and rapier-and-dagger.)

So, as we've seen above, Italians create safety with their daggers by widening the angle between the tip of their opponent's sword and their body. This relies on positioning - trying to make a wide angle between their tip and your body doesn't matter if you aren't past their tip yet. This is similar to how when a diestro steps around the circle, her body angle creates safety from thrusts after she crosses a certain line. The front half of her body acts as a parrying device, refusing to allow her opponent's tip to touch the rest of her body. In this way, body angulation allows the Spaniard to obtain the same effect as using two implements, where the Italian would prefer to use a dagger. This means that body angulation can be effectively used to act as an additional implement.

(As another aside - I think that Fabris's forward body posture can act on the same principle, and I am eager to try it more after having written this post.)

Lupold's Simplified Bargain-Basement Destreza

Greetings! Yesterday, we had no practice because of imminent Pennsic. As such, I've got nothing to write about! Oh no!

I feel compelled, however, to write about something I've been working on in my head for a while. The gist is that Destreza is written about in an over-complicated fashion. I want to simplify Destreza into a set of clean, easy principles. As such, I plan to herein write a clean, simple, easy pamphlet describing how to fight like the Spanish. I intend to divorce it from the mysticism and geometry that the Spanish use to try to legitimize themselves - this same geometry which over-complicates things and emphasizes the wrong principles.

Yes, this will be an opinion-laden piece. But hopefully, this will either work as an easy intro to Destreza, or it will expose flaws in my understanding. This also serves as a syllabus for a theoretical class that I might teach some day, "Destreza in an Hour".

(As a side note, there should be a few pictures that I make for this post. Due to Pennsic prep, I haven't had time to make them, so we must do without.)

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THE STANCE

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, pointing your arm and sword straight at your opponent's shoulder. You should be profiled with respect to your opponent - that is to say, if you draw a line through your shoulders, it should connect to their sword-arm shoulder.


THE SUMMARY

To win using The True Art, you want to approach your opponent on an arc, as though you are walking around a circle which has you on one side and your opponent on the other. While doing this, you need to offset your opponent's sword to the left or right of your body - this will require subtle adjustment of your blade.

When you get into a safe position, you should attack. There is a range at which you should thrust, one at which you should cut, and one at which you should grab their hilt and perform a movement of conclusion, in which you use your off-hand to neutralize their sword and threaten them with the tip of your sword. If you have a dagger, perform a thrust with your dagger instead of a movement of conclusion in all circumstances.

As you approach, you will need to put your blade from horizontal to more and more vertical, in order to create a bigger "wall" for your opponent to have to get around, to hit you. This vertical width corresponds to the various attacks you can perform at those distances.

Circling your opponent allows you to expose an angle above or below their hilt for thrusts, and allows you to use body movement to get out of the way your opponent's sword's tip. This is why we circle.


ATAJOS

An atajo is a way to keep your opponent's blade to the side, to prevent them from hitting you. There are two main ways to perform an atajo -

• Line in cross
• This simply means lowering your hilt and raising your tip, in order to push them aside or hold them aside with the bottom edge of your sword.
• Narrowing
• This means raising your hilt and lowering your tip, in order to push them aside or hold them aside with the top edge of your sword. This is generally done by loosening your grip, though you can do it by rotating your hand from terza to prima and then using the true edge of your sword.

Masters of Destreza will say that there are eight atajos - this is far too much detail. The eight atajos are line in cross and narrowing when stepping left or right, and when you are on the inside or outside of their blade, for a total of 8 different combinations of these three properties. For the moment, just keep in mind that line in cross means to take with the true edge, and narrowing means to take with your false edge.

Generally, your opponent should only be able to disengage under your hilt for line in cross, and over your hilt for narrowing.

RANGE

Generally, actions in Destreza start from just outside of lunge measure. That means that if you remain standing erect, you should be able to touch your opponent with your tip if you take three shoulder-width steps directly toward your opponent. Some people start doing things slightly closer - two steps away from their opponent. It shouldn't matter in the end - in the end, you should know what you can do no matter where you are positioned, in relation to your opponent.

STEPPING

When taking steps in Destreza, you should move like a knight in chess. So, each step should move you one or two shoulder-width steps to the left or right, and two or one steps forward.

Generally, instead of moving backwards one just steps out directly to the left or right, which increases distance by about one shoulder-width step.

Some Destreza masters close from three-steps-away to two-steps-away with a single shoulder-width step, which then flows into a circling step one way or the other.

DEFENDING

You will move forward, cross your blade next to theirs to perform line in cross or narrowing, and then take a step one way or the other. This will mean that you will either be pushing your opponent's blade, or walking away from your opponent's blade. If you are walking away from it, you should keep your blade toward the center of the circle - Circling around allows you to move closer to your opponent, without coming closer to their blade. If you push against their blade, you should be pushing their blade toward the edge of the circle.

If your opponent moves their tip around your hilt in a disengage above or below your hilt, switch which atajo you are using and push your opponent's blade to the other side of your body than it was on before, while stepping away from their blade's new destination.

You can also step toward their blade's new destination, but I do not prefer this, because it is not as safe.

As an example - you place your blade to the right of theirs, and then use line in cross while stepping around the circle to the left. If your opponent performs a disengage under your hilt, you would continue stepping to the left, move your blade across your body, and take their blade with narrowing. The reason you switch which atajo you use is to prevent your opponent from thrusting below or above your hilt.

This might take you off of the circumference of the circle. This is fine. I will explain how to deal with this in a moment.

CUTTING

In general, you want to perform as much of the cut as possible from your wrist, keeping your arm extended. Sometimes you need to use your elbow a bit - this is acceptable.

ATTACKING

There are two ways to attack. They are:

• Weak above strong
• The last half of your blade is above theirs. At their face, generally, though sometimes at their chest.
• Weak below strong
• The last half of your blade is below theirs. At their flank or gut, generally, though sometimes at their chest.

AFTER-THE-FACT EDIT ON 2016-08-22.

The following is somewhat incorrect. I've been finding that using Weak Over Strong and Weak Under Strong as a stance to remain in is more effective than going for Line in Cross or Narrowing right off the bat. Line in Cross and Narrowing seem to be better to abort to as a defense. As well, the best way to attack seems to be weak-over-strong=>thrust in weak-under-strong or weak-under-strong=>thrust in weak-over-strong. This can be further generalized to line-in-cross=>thrust in weak-under-strong and narrowing=>thrust in weak-over-strong. 

END OF AFTER-THE-FACT EDIT.

Thrusts, cuts, and movements of conclusion can all be performed in both ways. Generally, you want to transition from line in cross to weak above strong, and from narrowing to weak below strong. This allows you to maintain a bit of crossing with your opponent's blade, so you remain safe while attacking. In general, after your opponent parries, you will need to transition to the opposite atajo to foil their counter-attack. So, the flow would be line-in-cross=>weak-above-strong=>narrowing, or narrowing=>weak-below-strong=>line-in-cross. If your opponent doesn't parry, you will probably want to instead return to the atajo you had previously.

There is one special case of the flow in attacking. If you are switching between line in cross and narrowing in order to foil a disengage, you can instead progress directly to the associated attack. So, to foil a disengage, you could go from having the line in cross directly to a weak below strong attack, to strike while they are disengaging.

In general, you should be stepping away from their blade while you thrust, can be stepping away from or toward their blade when you cut, and you should be stepping toward their blade when you perform a movement of conclusion.

In general, you want to avoid blade contact when attacking. This means that when performing a thrust from narrowing, you might have to perform a small disengage with your tip under their hilt. If you are preforming a cut from narrowing, your sword will need to rotate in a full disk-shape above your head to avoid touching their blade. If you are performing a cut from line in cross, you can just lift your tip backwards and perform a cut with half of the disk shape. Again, you want to maintain the crossing of your sword over theirs with the cut, to provide some amount of defense.

To maintain this defense, your hilt should be slightly to the direction of their blade. So, if their blade is to your left, your hilt should be slightly to the left, to force them a little farther away from your body.

For the movement of conclusion, you want to grab from above for weak above strong, and from below for weak below strong.

MUTATING THE CIRCLE

Generally you should consider the circle to be oriented on your opponent, rather than necessarily having it oriented between you. So, the circle is positioned based on your opponent's shoulder and the direction of their tip from their shoulder. This means that if your opponent has their sword pointed straight leftwards, you are not on or in the circle.

In this case, take a step to place yourself on the circumference of the circle. From there, you should already know what to do.

This is true for any position - consider the circle drawn based on your opponent's sword positioning, and act accordingly. If their sword is particularly low or high, you might need to close to a closer range in order to be able to attack safely, simply because that range is the range at which you should be performing an atajo tall enough to defend yourself.

One secret to keep in mind - if you push your opponent's blade with an atajo, you are mutating the circle yourself. This means that you go from one side of the circle to the other, and should proceed accordingly.

GAME PLAN

This is my game plan, when fighting Destreza-against-Destreza.

1. Step forwards until my opponent and I are on my chosen circle. I prefer the two-steps-away distance.
2. Take a 2-left/right-1-forward step, while performing an atajo.
1. If my opponent is performing a disengage, step away from their sword and perform the appropriate attack or atajo.
2. If my opponent is far enough off-line for me to feel safe, step away from their blade and thrust.
3. OTHERWISE, take a 1-left/right-2-forward step and widen my atajo.
1. If my opponent is performing a disengage, step away from their sword and perform the appropriate attack or atajo.
2. If my opponent is far enough off-line for me to feel safe, step toward/away from their sword and perform the appropriate cut.
3. OTHERWISE, take a 2-right/left-1-forward step and widen my atajo again.
1. If my opponent is far enough off-line for me to feel safe, step toward their hilt and grab it, performing a movement of conclusion. Alternately, perform a thrust with my dagger.
2. OTHERWISE, move sideways to get back to a farther-out measure.

My game plan when fighting against non-Destreza is similar, except that the first step is to figure out which part of the circle I am stepping into, based on where my opponent's sword and body are. Then, I skip to the part of the above list corresponding to the range I have entered.

It helps to think of range in terms of what you can do while taking one step toward your opponent, around the circle.

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That is the sum total of how I do the Destreza at the moment. It looks so simple, written out there like that. If you want me to go over this post with you at Pennsic, let me know. I'd be happy to teach my understanding of Destreza to people.

Footwork Chart for Fabris Rule #4 and Practice Notes

Yesterday, practice was once again brutally hot. I'm glad that I wear my motorcycle gloves to practice in, but I'm pretty sure they're making a large dent in my endurance, given that they are insulated for winter riding and both palms and wrists release a lot of heat. I'll need to try them at least one day for Pennsic, but I'll probably end up fighting most of Pennsic in a new pair of Darkwood leather gloves so my hands will be cooler and more dextrous.

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I primarily worked on two things - Fabris Rule for Single Rapier #4, and keeping my hilt at the same height as my opponent's hilt until I actually want to take an action. I will discuss both in detail here.

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I have here a footwork chart for how I have been executing Fabris Rule for Single Rapier #4. The reason for this chart is to show that you can, with slight preparation, go to either side from any foot-position. In the description of the rule, Fabris says you should go to the direction of your back foot, but I have found that sometimes I want to go a specific direction, such as when I am fighting single against case.

I fear that this isn't as legible as I had expected it would be.

As is my tradition, we shall go through this in the form of bullet-points.

• Begin in a position with your right foot forward. You should be outside of your opponent's lunge measure. You should not be in a specific guard yet as per Fabris Rule for Single Rapier #3, but you should be prepared to parry if your opponent performs a lunge with a passing step.
• If you wish to move to the right, step your back foot forward to the position marked "1R". You should adopt a guard with your blade and hilt parallel to the ground, close below their sword. In this step, you are entering Misura Larga, which should be their lunge measure.
• Take a step with your right foot to the position marked "2R". You should lift your tip, keeping your hilt at the same height from the ground such that your blade will cross theirs. You should lean to the right, such that if your opponent keeps their sword still, your sword will block them from attacking you.
• As you do the above step, you should be noting which side of your sword your opponent's sword ends up on.
• If your opponent's sword ends up on the left of your sword, continue leaning to the right and take a step with your left foot to the position marked "AR". You will maintain the crossing of your sword with theirs and stab them. This will require a bit of an awkward contortion of your torso, but it is doable.
• If your opponent's sword ends up on the right of your sword, that means that they have turned to follow your body. You should use their rotation against them, by reversing the direction to which you are leaning. Take a step with your left foot to the position marked "BR" and lean to the left, switching your sword to the right side of your body to block their sword out. Stab them.
• If you wish to move to the left, step your front foot forward to the position marked "1L". As above, you should adopt a guard.
• Take a step with your left foot to the position marked "2L". You should lift your tip as above, but here you will be leaning left rather than right as described above.
• As above, note as soon as possible which side of your sword they end up on.
• If your opponent's sword ends up to the right of your sword, continue leaning left and step with your right foot to the position marked "AL". Stab them, maintaining the gaining of their blade.
• If your opponent's sword ends up to the left of your sword, that means they are following your body and you should use that against them. Lean right and step with your right foot to the position marked "BL". Move your sword to the left side of your body to protect yourself even more and stab them.

Some additional notes:

• This seems to work best for me when my blade is shorter than my opponent's blade.
• When using this with single against case, life is more difficult. I find myself using my off-hand quite a bit. Additionally, I find myself not switching my blade to the other side of my body on the steps to "BR" and "BL", relying on my voiding lean and my off-hand to defend myself. The step to "BL" is particularly difficult, and sometimes I do find myself switching the side of my body that my blade is on, relying solely on my off-hand to defend myself against their case blade.
• I find myself stepping toward whichever blade is in more of an "Italian" hilt-low, tip-high position. I wonder if this is necessary. It seems to work best.
• I also have had trouble when my opponent keeps more of a parallel-to-the-ground guard. I suppose that the Fabris solution here would be to go under their tip while applying opposition with my sword.

That's that. I want to continue trying this rule against case fighters. It seems to work acceptably, though I do wonder if it's just the fact that I am willing to put more quickness into my movement which is gaining me victory. I also wonder how this would go against a case fighter who wanted to be more aggressive than the ones I have been working against.

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I also worked with keeping my hilt at the same height as my opponent's hilt. It was interesting.

The idea behind this is vaguely Spanish-inspired. In theory, if my sword is at the same height as theirs, then I should be able to counter any motion of the wrist with one of my own. Similarly, I should be able to counter any motion of the hand by making one of my own.

What do I mean by this? Well, let me explain.

The Spanish have the idea of "breaking symmetry". That is, you and your opponent will have the same stance until one or the other of you "breaks symmetry" in a way that ideally gives you an advantage. This means positioning your sword to the left, right, above, or below your opponent's sword, perhaps with some sort of a push.

It is certainly the case that being above or below your opponent's sword can create opportunities for you to attack. If your hilt is significantly lower than your opponent's hilt, you might be able to thrust in at their gut in a way that denies them the opportunity to parry with the strong of their blade. 

Similarly, moving your hilt above theirs creates an opportunity to strike them such that geometry denies them the opportunity to parry with the strong of their blade before you touch them. This is the idea behind thrusting in Prima in the Italian school - unless they physically move backwards, they cannot apply their strong to your weak.

Keeping my hilt at the same height as theirs makes it much easier to deny them these opportunities to break symmetry. Especially against people who throw sniping shots, it means that I can foil these attacks with a quick motion of my wrist, and perhaps a small movement of my hand. Essentially, it is a compromise that allows me to be ready for everything.

Of course, this only applies at long measure. When we get to short measure, all of these assumptions go out the window because you don't have time to react any more. This creates a flowchart something like this:

• Maintain hilt at the same height as theirs in misura larga.
• Somehow establish an advantage.
• Immediately move into misura stretta, breaking symmetry.
• Lift hand, lower hand, something.
• Stab them using the advantage created by broken symmetry.

There are a number of other assumptions to question here, about how to make this work. For example, perhaps the height shouldn't be dictated by the distance from the ground. Perhaps it should be dictated by the line between your shoulder and their shoulder, since one or the other of you might be larger, and thus have more target area to defend. And do you really want to go completely down toward the ground if your opponent does?

I personally think that you shouldn't move your hilt beyond your presence, but that is just my current intuition. We'll see.

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Things I want to work on:

• Fabris Rule for Single Rapier #5, in which you aim your tip at their hilt, and then bend your arm at the elbow as you enter long measure, in order to create an advantageous crossing of blades.
• More thought about the things outlined in this post.

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YAY SWORDS.

Relating Italian Tempo and Spanish Distance

This post has been sitting in my "Drafts" queue at ~90% completion for a few months. I was inspired to complete it after a post that Doroga made. I have been a bit hesitant to post it, because anything that references Real Numbers is fodder to be disproven by other people. So, take all of this with a grain of salt, and if your numbers end up different from mine, just relax.

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Today, we have a post about tempo, inspired in part by my conversations with Doroga in which we talked about how the Spanish don't really use an idea of tempo, as the Italians do. The Spanish tend to worry more about distance and the appropriate place to do things. Tempo and distance are both important, and both the Spanish and the Italians neglect each other's favorite concepts.

Assuming two identical opponents, it is perfectly acceptable to understand one but not the other. But in modern SCA rapier, we have wide variations in blade type, blade length, and size of humans. I would guess that variation in matchups is much more likely to happen in modern SCA rapier than it would historically, and even in other HEMA-related disciplines. It is to this end that I wish to bring the Italian concept of "tempo" and the Spanish concept of "distance" down to earth.

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On tempo, Capoferro has the following to say on part 50 of his text, in chapter 5 (Leoni's translation):

The narrowest measure requires instead an extra-quick tempo, since even the smallest motion I make with my sword and the shortest stillness of my opponent would be enough for me to reach my design while in this measure; this extra-short tempo is therefore called a half-tempo. The tempo required to strike from the less narrow measure that we would call narrow measure of firm foot is a whole tempo; lastly, the tempo required to strike from the wide measure (which requires [a lunge]) is a whole tempo and a half.

Both before and after this passage, Capoferro speaks as most Italians do about how tempo is the measure of stillness and motion, and how my opponent's stillness corresponds to my motion, and vice versa. All of the Italian masters I have read, when they talk about tempo, speak in those terms. Essentially, it sounds like you and your opponent are taking turns. Why would this be?

Capoferro Plate 11, From Wiktenauer

Humans have a limited reaction speed. ~180ms, or ~1/5 of a second. If you want to perform an action, and be sure it has succeeded, you have to do the thing, then wait for your perceptions to catch up to your movements. This is the way you must act, in order to successfully act, perceive what your opponent has done, and then respond to their action.

This makes sense for the Italians. All of their plates talk about performing an action, and then responding to your opponent's action.

Armed with this knowledge, I took to my swording-dummy and attempted to use Capoferro's definitions of tempo. I have found, from personal experience, that I can lash out my arm to strike an uncovered hand or forearm in about 1/10 of a second. Similarly, a thrust with a lean takes about 1/5 of a second, and a full lunge requires about 3/10 of a second.

This also explains why, against a trained and ready fencer, a full lunge from maximum measure is useless - they can begin their parry after 1/5 of a second, which is enough time for them to disrupt a lunging thrust.

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As for distance, the Spanish have a circle. It's supposedly magical and occult and all of that fun stuff. The particular circle I favor is Viedma's.

From the translation of Díaz de Viedma, Luis. Método de Enseñanza de Maestros [Method of Teaching of Masters]. 1639

Available here.

Viedma provides explicit measurement of the circle, but neglects to tell us exactly how long our sword should be for it. I tend to be more of the Thibault school of things, in which I think all things should be relative. So, Viedma provides us with two measurements - that the circle should be 24 feet around (or ~7.6 feet across, using geometry) and that from point C, you should be able to just stab them with your tip. (For reference, see the Blow of Perfect Attack to the Face, page 22r.) As such, we can calculate that from point C to your opponent should be ~64 to ~67 inches. This means that Viedma is assuming that your sword plus the distance from your spine to your arm will be about that. With my 37" rapier, I hit 68 inches, so that's a bit more than intended by him.

He additionally gives the distance of  a circular step from A to B as 3 feet. Geometry says it's more like 2.9 feet in a straight line, but close enough. That's about how far my foot goes in standard lunge without trying to force it to go farther. This means it probably takes about 1.5 tempi to go that far from neutral, and then another 1.5 tempi to recover after the long step.

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As an aside, I tend to prefer the Thibault philosophy of calculating according to the proportions of the fencer. If I wanted to change the size of the circle, I would take the measurement from spine to tip as the measurement. Then, I would see if the fencer in question could take the appropriate -length step from A to B in the 1.5 tempi of the lunge, possibly widening my stance so that I can cover more ground. If so, great! If not, maybe it's time to use a shorter sword for doing Viedma's thing.

As an aside - using the above method to calculate blade length *does* come up with a correct length, according to Thibault's techniques and ways of moving, which differ subtly from Viedma. For more on historical blade length, see my friend Doroga's post on the subject, and my previous post about daggers.

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So, with that vast bushel of assumptions, we do a number of things. We can see that in the process of stepping, you should be able to perform ~3 single-tempo "actions" with your sword as you move around the circle, from point to point. A step you don't complete contains 1.5 single-tempo "actions", all of which can be defined in terms of Italian "taking the blade", "disengage", "thrust", and so on.

Similarly, one could take different types of steps according to tempo. An Italian non-lunge step takes about one tempo out, and one tempo to recover. Fabris and Capoferro both reference taking even smaller steps as well, though Fabris thinks that this is a poor choice. But, considering that type of stepping, we can decide what we wish to do with our blades, and then calculate what we can commit to with our feet at the same time.

If I were more motivated, one could develop this into a board game, in which people decide what they are doing, then reveal what they did with their previous action, then decide what they are doing with their next action. This would represent the sliding window of reaction-time, in which you are never reacting to exactly what your opponent is doing at this exact moment - you're only reacting to what they did one tempo ago.

If I were even more motivated, I would develop this into a computer game, in which a computer maps out the best option from each location as defined by these equivalencies and the available actions.

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This is, obviously, not the whole story. You can physically move your hand more with a lighter weapon, which means you can perform more blade actions. As well, the body mechanics of different humans will change things - smaller humans can get smaller angles, whereas bigger humans can reach longer angles. But this is the way of the Lupold - over-analyze data from a historical source, and then see if the over-analysis yields any useful conclusions.

Thus far, these equivalencies seem to hold up acceptably. I've been working Fabris, so they are not fresh in my mind, but I might return to them for a bit, to see how things go. There is a post on blade actions mid-step, which would include a brief section on Fabris's forward-movement and sideways-movement with intent. Perhaps I will even write it one day.

Additionally, "tempo" is a term which is not used for a consistent measurement in period sources. Fabris refers to "long tempo" and "short tempo", and I believe the Spanish talk about tempo as not a discrete thing, but as a progressive thing.

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As a summary of this post, with some additional bits that seem correct filled in for good measure:

• A lunge or lunging step is equivalent to 1.5 tempi.
• Recovering from a lunge, forward or backwards, is about equivalent to 1.5 tempi.
• A regular step is equivalent to 1 tempo, and covers half of the space of a lunge
• Similarly, recovering to neutral occupies an additional tempo.
• A tiny step can be taken, occupying .5 tempo in movement and .5 tempo in recovery.
• Longer steps are possible, trading further commitment for further distance, to a point.
• A "blade action" tends to take 1 tempo.
• It takes 1 tempo to react, which means you are always reacting to what your opponent did 1 tempo ago.
• This means that any fully offensive action that takes more than 1 tempo can be defended against.
• Unless you do a tricky thing, like attack when your opponent is distracted or perform a disengage.

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Have a good day, and fence well.

Fabris is Hard

I felt like I was hitting a dead end in my at-home drilling of Spanish Stuff. So, what do I do? Obviously, the best course to gain skill is to switch tracks at the least sign of an obstacle, the moment that the going gets rough. And fortunately, I got this shiny new reprint of Leoni's Fabris, available right here, right now. And not super-expensive, too.

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So, I did that thing I do. I grabbed the book and combed over it until I found something interesting. And what did I find, but a list of theoretical rules for how to fight Single Rapier and Rapier and Dagger while walking forward resolutely. So the first thing I did was chew through this part of the text, and then summarize it for reference.

Seriously, what else would I do?

Here's the my probably-completely-wrong summary:

• Principle 1 is basically the idea of stringere, but there's also a flowchart attached.
• Principle 2 is an interesting thing where you start with your blade in a super high guard with your arm bent, then rotate your body downwards to defend yourself. I can't do it right because I don't have the rotations down well enough, and don't know well enough when I am safe.
• Principle 3 is the idea that you don't really need to adopt a guard until you are beginning to step into your opponent's lunge measure.
• Principle 4 is basically a way of moving in a direction with your body, then using the void you perform to let you defend yourself with your sword.
• Principle 5 is a different way of entering into the concepts of principle 2, but given the different starting point it seems to usually end with extending into your opponent's parry and thrusting through it.
• Principle 6 is the idea that you should start with your arm extended, then bend your arm and put your left shoulder forward to get past their tip, and then stab them.

And here are the dagger rules, though these seem to be more guards than rules.

• The first one is a guard in which your sword is completely horizontal and your dagger points straight up. You are supposed to cross-parry and thrust your opponent.
• The second one is similar, except that your sword and dagger are pointed forward in a way that sort of makes a slice of pie. I already do this stance as one of my standard rotation.
• The third one is an interesting way of matching your sword and dagger in a way that makes them parallel, and puts your dagger's tip at the same place as your sword's tip, and lets you proactively parry with your dagger.
• The fourth one is a weird thing in which your dagger and maybe sword too to point at your opponent's sword. Huh!

And then I immediately attempted to implement them in practice. Again, there's way more in the text - I just wanted to get a quick summary so I could feel what did and did not work about them, to give me a basis for approaching them again in the book.

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Well, that didn't go super-well. It went well enough to be interesting - in particular, principle 5 from single went well, and principle 3 from sword and dagger went well.

I need to work on the rest of them. I know for sure that I'm doing them wrong, but I need to read through the manual to figure out exactly how I am doing them wrong. Because this cheat-sheet loses a whole lot of detail, and each section has basically a flowchart for when you should or should not use a particular rule.

Fabris has a different idea of distance and tempo, when compared to Capoferro or Giganti. Or rather, he speaks of long and short tempi, and he speaks of tempi of the body sometimes being shorter than tempi of the hand. Perhaps this is evidence that my "Capoferro wants you to use a lighter blade than Giganti or Fabris" heresy is correct. But without further evidence, I'm not yet going to assume that - rather, I'm going to assume that I am doing something wrong, and beat my head against the problem for approximately two more weeks, after which I will either have gained something out of it or I will abandon it.

Fabris also is an advocate of what some people call "Caminieren" - that is to say, walking fencing. He thinks that you should be walking forward, allowing your body to be the primary means of adjusting your sword's position, while your hand is mostly meant for disengaging and making sure you actually hit. It's fascinating, really.

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Since I'm tired, here's a quick few notes:

• Singles principle 2 does work well against Spanish, as expected.
• Dagger principle 4 didn't work super well against Spanish, but that might be because the particular fighter didn't move his arm around that much.
• Dagger principle 3 is great.
• Sword principles 2 and 5 are great.
• Most of the sword principles can be combined with each other, especially sword principle 3.
• I had a hard time with sword principle 1, but I think that's because people are used to seeing that in action. Need to do better with that flowchart, though.

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Anyhow, good night, and good fencing.

Quick Notes on Daggers

Common wisdom holds that historical dagger blades were perhaps 8 to 12 inches in length. This is not the only historical length. Viedma has the following to say about daggers (page 53r):

The dagger has to be long, at least half a vara, which is of notable advantage. The posture has to be over the arm, close to the chest, in a form that the sword doesn’t lose its straightness, nor the body its profile.

Earlier in the book, he also mentions (page 23v):

The body has to remain in profile, brought close to the master’s sword, in such conformity, that although he may have a dagger of three quarters in the left hand, he doesn’t reach to wound.

This leaves off the units, but it seems a reasonable assumption to me that the units would be the same in both instances.

One vara is about equivalent to 33 inches. Math says that this means that Viedma suggests a dagger of at least ~16.5 inches, and isn't surprised by the idea of a dagger of ~24.5 inches.

(EDIT FROM FUTURE-LUPOLD: In-period, the vara was different in different places until a declaration by King Felipe II in 1512 - well before Viedma's text was written. It's still possible, however, that Viedma was referring to a different measurement of vara. The smallest measurement of a vara that I can find is the vara of Teruel, which is 0.768 meters, and the largest measurement I can find is 0.912 meters. This means that the minimum range for a dagger would be from ~15 inches to ~22.5 inches, and the maximum range for a dagger would be from ~18 inches to ~27 inches.)

Viedma doesn't specify that this should be the length of the blade, rather than the overall weapon, but given that we have several historical examples of length being specified from the cross of the quillons in the Spanish tradition, it seems reasonable.

What of the shape of the dagger? We have historical examples of Spanish main gauches, of the correct length. However, if we look at Viedma's rather sparse art, we see the following in his section on fighting with a dagger against a sword, on page 58r:

If we are to believe this image, a Spanish dagger ought to basically look like a smaller sword, with quillons, a knucklebow, and a ricasso. This is different from the main gauche shown earlier, and indeed it seems as though Viedma advises that one use a dagger in about the same way as one uses a sword. In terms of modelling this, I could see a smallsword hilt working well for this purpose.

I am unsure if it is intentional, but the dagger shown in the art also has no distal taper, as opposed to the sword which has some degree of it. This would change the properties of the dagger and allow for more blade presence. Similarly, the sword is drawn with relatively little distal taper, which is an interesting thing to note.

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Other notes include the fact that Viedma implicitly mentions tempo on page 53r (emphasis mine):

It doesn’t have to serve more than at its time and blow, placed on the chest; only for some particular blows will it have to be placed at the part that the adversary’s sword has to leave, so that the blow is so brief that it almost can’t be known by the opponent, as our authors say.

This is an interesting note, given my semi-heretical definition of tempo as "the amount of time in which you can move before your opponent can react".

I really need to give this book a more thorough reading, now that I have some slight degree of understanding of Destreza. I've read the first half relatively thoroughly, but only performed a relatively detailed skim of the second half.

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After-the-fact edit: It's worth noting that Viedma's treatise is from 1639, which makes it somewhat post-SCA-period. However, it's only about 10 years more post-period than Pappenheimer hilts, which are ubiquitous.