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".

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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".

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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.

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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!

Further madness. Or, "Gaining the Blade"

BACKGROUND

I've been working my destreza-variant more, and I think I've finally got "gaining the blade" down to an effective, exhaustive, reproducible process. First - pictures.

This image shows how someone can attack to vital areas of the body. We should, for this exercise, consider ourselves to be the person on the left, and our opponent to be the person on the right. For the moment we are ignoring the third dimension. We will get back to it, but for the moment it would merely hinder our explanation.

The area O is the area in which it is hard for our opponent to do anything direct to us. In order to stab us, they need to bring their sword out of O and into either M or C.

So - the triangle labeled C is the area that our opponent can attack through in order to hit us with a straight thrust. This is the type of thrust in which your arm and your sword all become a single line, with no bend at the wrist or elbow. It is the longest-reaching attack, and the fastest as well. However, if we push their tip outside of that triangle, they cannot hit us without making an additional movement to re-position themselves.

The triangles Mt and Mb, collectively called M, are the area that our opponent's blade must reside in, in order to perform a yielding thrust. Yielding thrusts are characterized by maintaining a bend at the wrist in order to "angle around" an opponent's attempt at parrying. However, there is a limit to how far you can "angle around", defined by your sword and the length of your arm. Because of this, if we push any part of our opponent's blade outside of M, they can no longer execute a yielding thrust.

It is important to note that, as you get farther away, the M-triangles get smaller, because your opponent needs to be able to reach you with their blade. The angulation created by having their blade in M reduces their reach, and so they can angle farther around, the closer they are.

This all seems obvious, but by overthinking, we can strictly characterize the positions from which our opponent can stab us.

A straight thrust is characterized by decreasing the angles contained in our wrist and elbow, while raising or lowering our arm from the shoulder or moving forward with the body. In particular, we use this motion to push our hilt toward our opponent. The line followed by our hilt does eventually intersect our opponent's body.

A yielding thrust is characterized by increasing or maintaining an angle in the wrist, while rotating forwards at the shoulder or moving forwards with the body. This angle means that when an opponent attempts to parry, their parry at-best moves your tip toward their body. Here, our hand moves in a line that does not eventually intersect our opponent's body.

From the hand movements here described, we can see that a straight thrust and a yielding thrust are two separate things requiring strictly different movements. They cannot be done at the same time. As such, if an opponent executes one, they cannot execute the other without first arresting their sword's momentum and moving counter to their previous movement.

"A tempo", if you're into that sort of thing.

Okay but for real though, there is one weird edge-case that could be considered both, in which you maintain a bent elbow and lunge forwards, not moving your shoulder at all. It, however, can be defeated by both things that defeat straight thrusts and things that defeat yielding thrusts, so let's move on with our lives, shall we?

Ahem. "A tempo".

In order to defeat these things, we ought to characterize exactly when your opponent can hit you with either of these.

• An opponent can hit you with a straight thrust when 
• Their tip is in C.
• An opponent can hit you with a yielding thrust when
• One of the following is true
• Their hand and entire blade are in either M or C, with no part touching the other area.
• Either their hand or their tip is in M, and the other is in C.

This means that, to defend ourselves, we can either place their tip in O, or make sure that their blade is folded across C, so their hand is in one M-triangle and their tip is in the other triangle.

As we approach, we want to be defended at every single moment. This is the definition of gaining the blade.

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THE THIRD DIMENSION

Hopefully, the way this applies three-dimensionally should be obvious, or at least possible to extrapolate. If not, perhaps this picture of the same two figures, in slightly different stances and from top-view, will help.

Again, this ignores the length of the blade. The angle made by Ml and Mr would need be wider,  if yielding out that far meant that your opponent's blade would not touch you.

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STRATEGERY

When gaining the blade, the first thing we need to do is make sure that our opponent can't execute straight thrusts, because straight thrusts have more reach than yielding thrusts. We do this by, at large measure, blocking them out of C. This is assisted by the fact that, at large measure, the M triangles are very small.

Once we assure ourselves of that, we want to make sure they can't attack with a yielding thrust. This can be accomplished either by blocking their blade across their body, such that the middle of their blade is in C, or by pushing their blade outside of M.

After or during that, we can attack. This can be accomplished by either maintaining their blade outside of M using your quillons, or using timing and positioning to make sure that your strike gets there fast enough that they cannot respond.

One thing that has not yet been noted - body positioning can influence the shape of C and M. If you lower your body, you can change which zone their tip is inside of, even if they don't move at all.

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TIC-TACS

My current flowchart for executing this is as follows.

1. As you enter their large measure, if their tip is inside of C, use a very shallow version of the blade positioning outlined by last post to push their tip out of C.
1. Use spiraling or flipping your blade, as outlined by last post, to follow them if they disengage. (Maybe? Untested.)
2. Their tip is now outside of C. As you take tiny steps into their perfect measure, extend your blade toward their blade, perhaps leaning forward. You should, with your quillons, block their tip from entering C. If you can, make sure your blade is touching their blade.
1. If their tip is in M and their hand is in C or an opposing part of M, with their blade intersecting C, execute a direct thrust immediately, pushing their blade with your quillons. The approach and push should allow you to either push their tip into O, or at least maintain safety as outlined above.
3. Moving forward, angle your blade outwards in the spiraling fashion dictated by last post to block their blade out of M. They now can't hit you until you abandon their sword.
4. Attack, I guess? Ideally while using your off-hand or timing to neutralize their offensive capacity.

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ASSORTED THOUGHTS

This way of looking at things creates a relatively clear expectation of how to attack from measure. Ideally, you can find a line from your shoulder to their shoulder that pushes their blade out of C, while their hand is in the M on the opposing side.

It also creates an interesting way to define some positions where you would want to keep your blade to attack. Essentially, you want to be in a position that optimizes for the largest distance required to push your tip out of both C and whichever section of M your arm is in, or all sections of M if your arm is in C. If we go back to our first drawing, that means your tip (or the point of contact between your sword and your opponent's sword, if you get the chance to control that) should be along one of three lines, drawn in sharpie in the below image.

This is a touch farther out from your shoulder than your elbow,  which makes sense given how many fencing stances feature a bent-at-90º elbow and a blade pointing at your opponent's center-of-mass.

I also wonder about keeping one's arm extended along the line between C and M. This would place your hand at one of the two X marks, and then you would probably put your tip somewhere along the central line.

This line of thought also yields useful things for people with more reach. If their tip is along one of those three lines, they can more effectively feint in a direction and then strike in the other direction, because either attack would require an equal movement from their opponent to defend against.

Entirely separately - the slowness with which it is necessary to progress from large measure to perfect measure is interesting. It puts new context in the Spanish stepping. After all, if you need to slow the forward component of your stepping, why not use that part of it to move sideways and possibly void an attack from your opponent?

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That's sort of where I am, in terms of using one blade against one other blade. Ideally this takes care of the mid-blade disengage problem I was previously running into, because mid-blade disengages are generally dangerous only when they lead to your opponent's tip being in C.

From here, I think I need to map out how to attack more thoroughly than I have previously, and taking into account this somewhat rigid flowchart. I need to see if this style works correctly. If so, I might be able to effectively bring single 37-inch rapier into K&Q next year, which would be interesting.

But yes. It's important to gain blades, and to stab people, and to do all those good things. Closing an essay is hard.

Recent Destrezaesque Madness

I've been in a weird place, with my recent fencing.

I have been working my short-blade Destreza game. Essentially, I've taken the concepts from last post and expanded on them somewhat. The diamond-shaped parries continue to be important, wherein my tip is at one corner of the diamond, and my hand is at another corner of it. From there, I tried to figure out the best ways to attack from that set of eight parrying guards. That's where things got weird.

So, against opponents who have similar reach and are not moving backwards, executing one quarter-rotation around the diamond in the direction of your hand seems to be sufficient. From there, we thrust and then withdraw into the guard we've ended up in.

To further elaborate - if we take this figure from last post.

You can see it as a diamond around our opponent's head and torso. We want our hand to be at one of the corners of the diamond, and our tip to be at one of the corners next to it. So, an example would be hand at the bottom, and tip at the left. This is a good position for keeping your opponent's sword outside of your presence to the lower-left.

If they disengage around your hilt, you would need to adjust, either flipping your tip from the left to the right and keeping your hand in place, or if they are executing a smaller disengage, bring your hilt to the right and put your hilt at the bottom, cutting into their sword and forcing them into motion.

If they try to move up and around your tip, into the upper-left area, you would need to adjust in the opposite direction - You would need to bring your hand to the left corner, and then move your tip to the top corner, likely not losing contact with their blade at any point in this process.

Since it has been pointed out that this is in no way what Viedma was talking about, by someone who is a better academic than I am, I'm going to start using a different notation for this sort of hand position. Given that the transitions tend to go in the direction of the hand relative to the tip, "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" seem like good ways to specify things. This, paired with hand position, results in things like "low clockwise", referring to the position where the hand is low and the tip is to the right. Or "high counter-clockwise", where the hand is at the top of the diamond and the tip is to the right. Or "left clockwise", where the hand is to the left, and the tip is in the bottom corner of the diamond.

One point that bears mention - Transitioning between these guards can be weird. The transition from Right CCW to High CCW or Left CW to High CW can be awkward and difficult. It requires an "uncoiling" of the arm, usually after attacking. There is more detail to these transitions, but I will leave that off for the moment, because it's not actually super useful.

In any case, this is pretty excellent when reach is similar and your opponent is fighting like a Spaniard.

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REACH

When your opponent has more reach than you, they can do several frustrating things. Most of them don't matter, in terms of the above. Taking their blade using the diamond will still take their blade. However, there are two things that people with reach can do which will frustrate these plans.

MOVING BACKWARDS AND ATTACKING

People with more reach gain a lot out of moving backwards and attacking. Given that there is a small zone in which they can theoretically reach you and you cannot reach them, it behooves them to move away from you. As such, it is much more likely that a taller opponent will have some amount of momentum away from you, and you will need to approach them quickly. Frequently, against a taller opponent, I approach in a straight line rather than a circle.

As well, given the backwards movement, it usually means that there will be more time between my initial parry and the eventual stab on one side or the other. So against people with more reach than you, you may need to transition more than the one-or-two steps around the circle necessary to control a less long-reach opponent's blade.

Generally the attacking procedure against someone with similar reach goes like this:
Low CCW => Right CCW => Stab to their stomach under their left arm => Return to Right CCW and exit defensively

Or even this, if they are retreating:
Right CW => Low CW => Left CW => Stab to their stomach under their right arm => Return to right CCW and exit defensively

Against a person with more reach, the second of those would be the default. And, if they are retreating, you might have to go one more guard around the diamond, or two more:

One more:
Right CW => Low CW => Left CW => High CW => Stab or cut to right side of face => Return to High CW and exit defensively

Two more:
High CCW => Left CCW => Low CCW => Right CCW => High CCW => Stab or cut to left side of face => Return to High CCW and exit defensively

In general, it is best to attack to the stomach. Attacking to the stomach will leave you in one of the guards where either your tip or your hilt is low - Low CW, Left CW, Low CCW, or Right CCW. I also prefer to attack to the part of the stomach under their off-side, but I'm not sure if that is actually correct. As such, you should consider the endpoint of your guards, with respect to how long you think pursuit will take.

As such, if your opponent is right-handed (and left-handedness just changes the "best" to "followed closely" and vice versa)...

If you think you can get there in one rotation around the diamond, Low CCW and Right CW are the best guards, followed closely by Left CCW and Low CW.

If you think it will take two rotations around the diamond, Left CCW and High CW are the best guards, followed closely by High CCW and Right CW.

If you think you can get there in three rotations, High CCW and Left CW are the best, followed by Right CCW and Low CW

Four rotations results in a loop. So you start in the position that you would like to end in - Right CCW or Low CW, followed in idealness by Low CCW and Left CW.

The reason this all needs outlined is that you usually can't tell if your opponent is going to move away from you before you start executing a motion. So, you need to get into a place where you can easily take one more rotation around the diamond.

Given that length has already been established as adding one needed rotation, this results in the following:

If you are fencing someone of similar reach, you will most likely need to execute either one or two rotations around the diamond. This results in Right CW and Left CCW being the strongest offensive guards.

If you are fencing someone with more reach, High CW and High CCW end up being the strongest offensive guards for pursuit, if they let you gain their blades from the bottom. Frequently, they will adopt high or low refused guards, which don't allow this.

Sometimes you can fudge more or less - either getting an extra rotation in, or getting one fewer than normally might be necessary due to your opponent moving forward. Without the strategies in the next segment, I would suggest trying to fudge one more rotation against opponents who have reach and keep their swords low - this results in either 3 or 4 rotations, which mean that Right CCW and Left CW are ideal, both of which put your tip low and should cover your low line.


REFUSED GUARDS

If you have similar or less reach than your opponent, a refused guard is generally the thing that happens right before getting stabbed for being off-line. For an opponent with more reach, however, a refused guard can draw you off-guard so they can attack you in unexpected ways. There is, however, a general solution for this problem.

The solutions in the previous section work well when your opponent's sword is still within or near the diamond. However, if they are outside of the diamond, they can wait for you to attempt to gain their blade and disengage in ways that result in you always pursuing their blade. This is suboptimal.

The way that I have been working against this, when I remember to, is by performing a leaning thrust or demi-lunge toward a part of their blade toward the middle, but that I can still get a stronger part of my blade onto. Your blade should be to one side or the other of theirs, depending on things we have not covered yet. Your quillons should be on the diamond-cone or outside of it.

Note here that the lean is, in part, to reduce the size of your defensive diamond, by refusing your stomach and lowering your head, with respect to their shoulder. Kinda like Fabris!

The intention here is to confound the direct route for their blade. If they bend their elbow to try to bring their sword directly on-line with your body, their blade should encounter your quillons, which should leave you safe and able to progress through rotation normally. Or, even better, you may be able to just stab them, keeping their blade on your quillons. If they pull their arm backwards with their shoulder, this should increase the time taken for their attack quite a bit, and does not bear individual consideration.

If they try to push through your blade, you should be able to begin rotation in a clockwise or counter-clockwise manner and reduce this to the previous principle.

If they try to pull backwards to a weaker part of your blade to push through there, you should be able to do an anti-rotation to regain strength. From Right CCW to Low CCW, as an example.

If they do nothing, you can begin a standard rotation.

If they have no pressure against your sword in a way that implies pulling away from your sword, you should immediately execute two rotations around the circle in quick succession. Normally, one rotation would be fine, but the fear here is that they will execute a mid-blade disengage, which a double-rotation will confound in this situation.

The choice in blade placement relies on where you want to go for the attack. If your opponent's blade is below the bottom corner of the diamond and you put your sword to the left of theirs, this means that you will end up in one of Low CCW, Right CCW, or High CCW.

As an example, if your opponent's sword is below the bottom corner of the diamond and you have extended yours and leaned forward such that your blade is touching theirs, to the left of their blade:

Opponent tries to press through your sword => Right CCW => Thrust to stomach under their left arm => Return to Right CCW and exit defensively

But I just glazed right over mid-blade disengages.


MID-BLADE DISENGAGES

Lastly, they can execute a mid-blade disengage. This is a disengage in which their hand and hilt move counter to the motion of their tip, which increases the speed of their sword's movement. It also changes the position of their hilt, which can mean that where you previously had opposition, you suddenly don't any more - frequently a mid-blade disengage will result in their blade briefly being parallel to yours. The sudden break of their wrist also means that their tip pulls back far enough that they can attack around your hilt faster than you can change your blade's position to regain their tip.

The reason that this is a more relevant technique for people with more reach is that a mid-blade disengage draws one's hand away from the center line generally, which puts you in a worse defensive posture. This works for longer-reach folk because they don't have to worry as much about defense, given that they can usually hit you before you can hit them. It also pulls their sword back a tiny bit, for this same reason, meaning that they give up a bit of reach.

A normal disengage would leave their tip about as far out as previously, which would allow you to get "past their tip" or to force their blade outside of your presence. The mid-blade disengage, however, foils this.

The parallel blade position also makes it much harder to gain their sword. If you think in terms of spacial rotation, 90º is the most that you can need to rotate in order to cross your sword between their sword and your body. As well, a mid-blade disengage is frequently executed in counter-tempo, which means that your blade already has momentum in the direction opposite to where you would need to go.

Third, mid-blade disengages are super fast. Super fast.

The most unfortunate part about them is that, for many mid-blade disengages, the point of rotation is inside of the diamond-cone-thing that you are trying to keep their sword out of. This, coupled with the other parts of mid-blade disengages, allows a long-blade-user to penetrate the diamond with impunity.

Unless, of course, you are careful.

If your opponent is a careful sort who attempts to keep their arm within your diamond-cone-thing-of-defense, then most of the stuff up until now won't work, if you enter with extremely decisive intent. The counter here is to approach slowly at first, and then when you get past a critical point to approach with fast intent.

Destreza-ish Counter to Mid-Blade Disengages

There are several ways to do this. The more Destreza-ish way to do this is to consider the circle. When walking around the circle, you can take three steps. In the first, you execute a tiny gain of your opponent's blade. Since you are near the maximum of your opponent's measure, the diamond is tiny at this point, so executing an appropriate gain only requires a small movement from the diameter line.

At that point, they have a few options. They can attempt to execute a disengage, mid-blade or otherwise. Given that your hand and blade only moved a bit, you will be similarly fast when compared to them. This allows you to begin rotation normally.

However, if they execute a mid-blade disengage, you can do something better and faster. A mid-blade disengage requires them to move their hand toward your tip, which gives them a counter-movement of their tip toward your hilt. If you notice this, you can switch the direction around the diamond you are going  and strike them. So, if your small gain in in Low CCW, you switch your tip from left to right while keeping your hand near the same position, to enter something between Low CW and Left CW. This should allow you to strike through your opponent's blade in a way that they can't defend against, so long as you make sure to use your blade and quillons to keep their tip outside of the defensive diamond.

If they try to attack through your blade, you likely can either begin rotation, or interpose your quillons such that you are defended by your quillons. This allows you to simply angle your tip in toward them and stab them, likely in the face.

If they try to pull back to a weaker part of your blade, this pulls their tip off-line. Ideally you should be able to execute a lunge and stab them, at this point.

It is good to note that you should be acting on a circle sized according to your opponent's reach, for all of this. Read the next section for more information on that.

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ITALIAN NOTES FOR DISTANCE

This is similar to the Destreza version, but instead of walking the circle, we take little tiny steps forward. So small. About the length of your big toe, and faster than your opponent can react to them.

A useful thing to think of is Alfieri's division of measure. Alfieri has three measures that matter - misura larga, misura perfetta, and misura stretta. These translate to Large Measure, Perfect Measure, and Close Measure.

Large Measure is roughly the place at which you can hit your opponent with a full, deep lunge. It roughly corresponds to being on opposite sides of the Destreza Circle.

Perfect Measure is the place at which you can hit your opponent with a demi-lunge. That is to say, leaning forward, and taking about a foot-length step forward with your front foot, but leaving your back foot in place. It roughly corresponds to the first step around the circle.

Close Measure is the place at which you can hit your opponent by simply leaning and attacking. It roughly corresponds to the second step around the circle.

In general, an attack from Large Measure can be reacted to. An attack from Perfect Measure just barely can't be reacted to, and a thrust from Close Measure is absolutely too fast to react to. This all assumes a clear line from your blade to your opponent.

So, in order to deal with your foe, you need to approach into at the very least your Large Measure, and more likely your Perfect Measure.

In general, you will be trying to advance and maintain a gain of your opponent's blade until you enter Perfect Measure, at which point you attack them. They are required to attack you before then, or lose. I advise the above Spanish-ish actions to defend against the various things that can be done, though Capoferro's responses work well.

In general, the things which seem to work rely on distances. In Capoferro terms, as far as I know:

• Their Large, Perfect, or Close Measure, out of your measure
• They execute a standard disengage to attack
• You respond by parrying appropriately and taking a large step forward.
• They execute a mid-blade disengage
• You re-cover the line, since mid-blade disengages very briefly reduce their measure and you can't attack yet.
• They attempt to yield around your gain of their blade
• You widen your gain and pull back some, taking a very large step forward, likely entering your perfect measure and attacking.
• They attempt to pull their blade back and re-situate it
• You re-cover the line, since pulling back briefly reduces their measure and you can't attack yet.
• Their Large Measure, your large measure
• They execute a standard disengage to attack
• Duo-tempi parry/riposte
• They execute a mid-blade disengage
• Single-tempo parry-riposte, since mid-blade disengages very briefly reduce measure.
• They attempt a yield
• Widen, step forward, prepare to attack
• They attempt to pull back their blade
• Mid-size step forward, maintaining your gain on their blade
• Their perfect or close measure, your large measure
• Same as large/large, but with harder timing
•  Their perfect measure, your perfect measure
• They do anything
• Single-tempo parry/riposte
• They attempt a yield
• Voiding attack

The bullshit Spanish-ish things should be somewhat obvious, from the above text. Many of the actions are replaced with rotations around the diamond, but that has largely been outlined already.

One thing I've been thinking about is arcs of approach. The Spanish want you to approach in a circle. Why not in a manner that has you move forward first, then arc to the side as you might enter your opponent's dagger range, in order to stay out of it? HMM.

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NEXT-DAY EDIT

When fighting my dialect of not-Destreza, there are some strategies that I forgot to implement last practice which I need to remember to implement in the future. They are specific strategies that need implemented against longer-reach people, due to the principles of reach inequality. They are:

• Opponent has less reach or equal reach
• For rotations / transports, prepare to go between 0 and 2 steps around the diamond, based on how they move.
• For 0 or 1 steps, get in Low CW or Low CCW
• For 1 or 2 steps, get in Left CCW or Right CW
• Opponent has more reach
• For rotations / transports, prepare to go one more step around the diamond than you otherwise might.
• If they allow it, get in High CW or High CCW and block them out to the top, preparing to attack after 2 or 3 steps around the diamond.
• If not, get in Left CW or Right CCW, preparing to take them 3 steps around or even 4, which is a full circle.
• If they adopt a refused guard outside of the diamond-cone of defense, execute a leaning thrust / demi-lunge toward their blade, making sure to choose which side your blade goes to based on how many steps around the diamond you want to transport them.
• Make sure that your quillons are on or outside of the diamond.
• Try to make sure that a stronger part of your blade is touching a weaker part of their blade.
• Make sure that they can't, in one motion, get their tip to your body. Make sure they need to pull back with at least one of their joints before they thrust, to hit you.
• If they give their blade to your quillons, then use your quillons to push them farther outside of the diamond if you can, and stab them.
• If their blade is not drastically off-line, make sure to come into measure slowly.
• Do it in two steps, so that you can force them to execute their mid-blade disengage in timing that you can counter.

Or, this can be broken down into Aggressive Parry Techniques.

• Just Take Their Blade
• Jump directly into a diamond-based stance like Low CW
• Thrust Toward Their Blade
• Thrust at their blade, profiling yourself to be protected by your quillons outside of the diamond
• Two-Step Actions 
• Do a smaller version of the above two techniques, approaching into their Large Measure to the point where you can step to Perfect Measure in one small step
• At that point, do a full version of the above techniques.
• This is to be used in situations where an opponent can execute mid-blade disengages.

In theory, it seems like we should be classifying things in the following ways.

• Defensive Parry Techniques
• Reactions to an opponent's actions from neutral in their Large Measure
• Aggressive Parry Techniques
• Proactive techniques to gain the blade from neutral in their Large Measure
• Resulting Positions 1 - Their Large Measure
• A concise classification of the positions that result from the above techniques
• First attacks
• Attacks which take advantage of a flaw in your opponent's guard to hit them from neutral in or as they enter your Large measure
• First Counter-Action attacks
• Attacks which take advantage of an incorrect action from your opponent from neutral in or as they enter your Large measure
• Resulting Positions 2 - Your Large Measure
• A concise classification of the positions that result from attacks in the first intention
• Second Defensive Parry Techniques
• Reactions to an opponent's actions from Resulting Positions 1 and 2, while in their Large Measure
• Second Aggressive Parry Techniques
• Proactive techniques to gain your opponent's blade from Resulting Positions 1 and 2, when transitioning from their Large Measure to their Perfect Measure
• Resulting Positions 3 - Their Perfect Measure
• A concise classification of positions that result from the above techniques 
• Second Attacks
• Attacks which result from Resulting Positions 1 and 2, requiring that you are already in your Large Measure
• Second Counter-Action attacks
• Attacks which result from Resulting Positions 1 and 2, prompted by an incorrect action from your opponent which allows you to stab them, requiring that you are already in your Large Measure
•  Resulting Positions 4 - Your Perfect Measure
•  Third Defensive Parry Techniques
• As above, but while in their Perfect Measure
• Third Aggressive Parry Techniques
• Same, but while transitioning from their Perfect Measure to their Close Measure
•  Resulting Positions 5 - Their Close Measure
• Third Attacks
• Attacks from positions in Resulting Positions 3 and 4. This would also have some guidance about possible attacks from when you are within your Perfect Measure, but their Large Measure.
• Third Counter-Action Attacks
• You get the idea by this point
• Resulting Positions 6 - Your Close Measure
• Inside of Close Measure
• Exiting Measure

And then, if I write all that, it would end up being a For Serious Manual. But the differentiation between what can be done in Large Measure, Perfect Measure, and Close Measure bears strong focus. As well, the idea that defensive techniques rely on your opponent's measure, while offensive techniques rely on your measure, is paramount.

More Destreza Bullshit

I had a rough practice, so I blog. Preface - this is all my interpretations of things. So when I reference historical masters, I am not necessarily saying what they actually said, I'm saying my interpretation, and what I've inferred from the actual words that are in the manuals.

In this post, I also use the word "parry" to mean "atajo", because fuck it they're the same thing. Atajos are frequently more proactive, but a proactive parry is still a parry.

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I have previously talked about the ways that one can defeat a parry. In short they are:

1. Disengage: get around your opponent's blade by moving your tip (primarily).
1. I also would consider an attack through the weak of your opponent's blade to be a category of disengage. After all - you're moving your sword around theirs until you get past the point where they can usefully parry, and then you attack without concern for the fact that their blade is there. Sounds like a disengage to me.
2. Slipping out: pull your sword backwards until your tip escapes their parry, then push it back in.
3. Yielding around: push your sword forward around their parry, creating an angle with your wrist.

 If you have questions, this is covered more in this post about penetration, width, and parallax.

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Thibault's dialect of Destreza is extremely focused. He has a lot of edge-cases he defines, but his defensive principles can be largely enumerated as two rules.

1. ALWAYS keep your hand on the diameter line, between your sword-shoulder and your opponent's sword-shoulder.
2. To defend yourself, bend at the wrist while lowering or raising your hand using your shoulder, to push their sword down and to the left or to the right.

This ends up being surprisingly effective, if you try it. This is because it counters all three ways of defeating a parry.

1. It counters disengages by being very "wide", from bending at the wrist.
1. It also counters attacks through opposition, by pulling your tip away from your opponent and thus forcing them to engage your sword with a weaker part of their sword.
2. It counters slipping out by your hand (and thus your sword) being as far forward as possible, increasing the time it will take them to pull their tip backwards out of your parry.
3. It counters yielding around if your tip is pushing them far enough away from your center-of-mass (tip to the left or right, hand low) that they cannot yield around without taking a step.

This is great. A few things to note - the distance downwards of your hand and the distance left or right of your tip should depend on how close you are to your opponent and their reach. In Destreza terms - it should depend on where you are in your opponent's circle.

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So that's where I was for a few months. Over time, I realized that Thibault's method of defense is a more correct version of the Line in Cross. That is to say, if you take their sword with the false edge of your sword, you can do something very similar in a standard Italian or Destreza grip, and it works stunningly.

Never take your hand off that center diameter, though, because doing so will necessarily decrease the reach of your Line in Cross and also make it harder for you to switch from a left LiC to a right LiC, due to how inertia works in a sword. This means that your parry will be worse against two of the three ways to defeat a parry

Over time, I rolled that around in my head and mushed it in with my previous work on parallax - in particular, the parts about the "cone of parallax".

As a refresher - the "cone of parallax" is the cone which defines how widely you have to parry in order to defeat your opponent's widest possible yield-around. The original thought experiment was based on specifically imagining your opponent striking your leading shoulder, in order to make the shape as simple as possible.

This led to me thinking very hard about what the "shape" of the ideal Line in Cross would be. In order to understand this, there are a few things that we need to consider.

• Yielding-around means that to parry someone, you need to parry wider, the farther forward your parry is.
• The human body is not a point. In a Spanish stance, the human body is profiled, with the shoulder near but not at the top. This means that the shape of possible yield-arounds is deformed from a cone, allowing for slightly more area upwards and much more area downwards.
• Intuitively - your body extends farther below your shoulder than it does above your shoulder.
• Removing your hand from the diameter line reduces how far forward your hand is extended. As well, the diameter line defines the farthest downwards that an opponent can yield around without dropping their shoulder. 
• To simplify things, we can consider a shape that is "good enough". That is to say, it covers the farthest yield, but might over-cover some places.
• But in order to not over-cover too much, the shape should be smaller, the farther out we are.

 So, demonstrating with Arts and Crafts what this shape looks like...

As demonstrated above - the closer you are to your opponent, the wider the cone must be, up to a point. Thus, from the point of view to the far right, that's about the shape you need to block their sword out of, in order to be safe from all forms of attack. This shape gets wider as you get closer, and smaller as you get farther. It's an abstraction of a minimum - that is to say, if you push their sword out even more, you will remain safe.

Here are the cones in which someone who is far away (left) can attack you (right). The shorter rectangles with dots on them represent the opponent's arm, the longer ones represent their sword:

 And here is the resulting shape that you need to push them out of, using Line in Cross or Narrowing. This is about the cross-section of the shape at arm's length, or halfway down your opponent's sword. If your blade is not perfectly perpendicular to them, you will need to use a somewhat altered shape, which grows a bit the farther forward the relevant part of your sword is.

You can see in the next few images that as the opponent gets closer, the kite or diamond shape grows.

This is about how far out you need to push their sword, at maximum, to be safe at close measure. Again, it grows the farther forward your sword is, with this diamond assuming that your blade is perpendicular to them. Note how the center of the diamond is their leading shoulder. If they were in a more square stance, the center of the diamond would still be the shoulder holding their sword.

I also sort of slipped in there the top edges of the shape, for executing Narrowing,since the way to derive those edges is the same. Note how the bottom edges of the diamond are taller, meaning that Line in Cross covers more space than Narrowing does.

In general, for Line in Cross, we should have our hands at or near the bottom of the diamond, and your tip should be at or past the left or right corner of the diamond. Otherwise, we cannot create the firm parry that Line in Cross should be. This implies and necessitates that Line in Cross should be a false-edge-leading parry.

For Narrowing, the reverse should be true. Hand goes to the top corner. This is much more awkward than Line in Cross.

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Thinking about this, I had a realization. There should be other parries, too, which follow the principles herein.  It should be possible to place your hand at the left or right corner of the diamond, while placing your tip at the bottom or top corner of the diamond. And that's when I realized something that I should have realized years ago.

Using a loose interpretation of Viedma's work, that's how he describes the other two primary generals - Weak Under Strong and Weak Over Strong. I had been tripped up by those wily Italians due to how Viedma describes it. He describes Weak Under Strong as a position in which the weak of your sword is under their hilt.

This makes a lot of sense, if you are fighting a Spaniard in the LVD stance. However, an Italian might have their hand very low, which means that if your tip is under their tip, it's very likely that you can't execute a useful parry at all.

However, a Spaniard keeps their hilt in line with their shoulder with respect to your shoulder, most of the time. This means that "under their hilt" and "under their shoulder" would mean the same thing.

This means that we can interpret Weak Under Strong and Weak Over Strong to be centered not on their hilt, but on their shoulder. Which would make Weak Over Strong and Weak Under Strong the other parries that seemed like they should exist, according to the principles outlined above and the shape of the diamond.

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As a fun side note - this also explains how Thibault's parry against high, close blade positions works. He suggests that you execute Weak Over Strong for those positions, if we take my definition to be correct. We can also start classifying Spanish-ish fencing according to the positions that they prefer.

In order of preference...

1. Viedma
1.  Line in Cross
2. Weak Under Strong
3. Would prefer you to not use anything else, but...
4. Narrowing
5. Weak Over Strong
2. Thibault
1. Line in Cross
2. ...
3. Weak Over Strong, if you really need to and you're in close
4. Nothing else
5. Fuck off
6. Ok, there is some stuff we could classify as Narrowing in attacks

Thibault does have some additional things, too - he uses his quillons to push people outside of the bottom and sides of the diamond quite a bit. For that reason, I think that Thibault might be a superior style, and is an evolution beyond Viedma's LVD. He also prefers a longer blade, which probably helps to make Line in Cross the only thing you need.

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The above also makes several things work better, including making the Low General and High General work at all. I still need to experiment and work with this, but it seems like a useful thing which I can do.

For those who don't remember - the Low General is a transition from Line in Cross to Weak Under Strong. The High General is a transition from Narrowing to Weak Over Strong. Usually with a step or two in the direction of the opponent's blade.

Current additional topics for investigation include:

• Places to act on your opponent's blade.
• Do you want them in the center of each line segment of the diamond in order to act on them?
• What about the Krumphau specified by Thibault against Italians? It pushes them outside of the diamond, true, but how and why does it work?
• How do I act against an opponent who will not let me break their wrist somehow? e.g., Default Low Black Tiger Guard.
• What about opponents who try to refuse their tip by placing their dagger at the ready? For example, Ansteorran Whatever Style.
• Should there be a "Rising General" and "Falling General" as well, for transitioning from, for example, Weak Under Strong to Narrowing?
• What about people who fight SUPERMAN CASE? (Both arms extend and they fly forward)
• Opposition them with a stronger part of my blade to FORCE them into a position I want, as per Thibault against low guards?
•  Ways to act against people who are in a Spanish stance.
• Why doesn't the Thibault "LUNGE INTO THEIR FACE" work with my LVD? Is it a tell? Is it the different distance?
• What are the differences between LVD and Thibault that are due to blade length? Grip / quillon placement? Overall approach?
•  How do I strengthen my execution of the High General?

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There's one more thing I wanted to cover. Reach discrepancies.

In Viedma's ideal Destreza, you almost exclusively use Line in Cross, transitioning into Weak Under Strong after or as part of the attack, as per the Low General. He argues that students don't actually need Narrowing, Weak Over Strong, or the High General, and that the High General should only be studied after a student becomes a master.

In this ideal game plan, you approach with Line in Cross. If your opponent gets out of you subjecting them, you transition to Weak Under Strong. I think that Viedma believes that you should Just Not Screw up, and your opponent should never be able to escape your parry. This leads me to believe that, in practice, people probably just exited the circle by taking a straight leftward or rightward step if their opponent escaped their subjection.

However.

We live in the real world. Especially Italian styles are crafted to be able to take advantage of reach, positioning and backward movement to escape the Line in Cross. As a shorter-reach fighter, you will have maybe one clear shot, when you get into position. As well, your opponent will try their damnedest to put you into positions that make you uncomfortable.

This means that, as a shorter-reach fighter, the expected payoff of making an attack that you are slightly less comfortable with is greater than the utility of exiting measure if you don't have perfect positioning.

Intuitively: Every time you try for positioning, you're giving your longer-reach opponent a chance to make an attack roll. It's a very low chance to hit - maybe one in 20. But the more times you do that, the more chances they have, and eventually you will screw up. This means that you need to be as good as possible, to make as many positions as you can into positions which are good for you. To optimize for victory, you need to reduce the number of times you try to maneuver for positioning.

This is why long-reach fighters get away with Stupid Bullshit Stances. Because Stupid Bullshit can create uncertainty, and that creates hesitation. And in a fight with a reach discrepancy, hesitation means another chance for them to take the shot.

This is also why so many "legendary figures" have long reach. Because we are animals, and if someone has a reputation for being a good fighter, that creates hesitation. Hesitation creates opportunities for the person with reach, which creates a cycle which feeds into itself.

This is also a reason it sucks so much to have shorter reach. Because if you are a high-ranked fencer, it can feel like you have something to lose when you lose to a Young Whippersnapper. That creates hesitation. And as I have asserted already, hesitation creates opportunities for the fighter with more reach, which leads to a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle.

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Anyhow. That was a super long post, and I hope y'all enjoyed reading it.

Simplified Destreza: the REVENGE

I was arbitrarily depressed for no good reason, and then a bunch of bullshit news broke, which pushed buttons. So, I'mma talk swords for a while, because that's a good coping mechanism.

Some destreza insights came to me a bit over a week ago, and they've revolutionized both my Italian and my Spanish game in a way I hadn't thought possible at this point. So that's pretty cool! My brain has been obsessing over them since, trying to figure out exact boundaries of how things work and where they're applicable.

This is mostly a simplified version of stuff I already knew. But it's simplified to the bare bones. I realize that this doesn't look short, but as far as I'm concerned this should be all you need to know in order to fence. I know I'll be proven wrong, and that's fine, but it's a nice thought.

I have a more thorough blog post about this in the works, but I don't want to deal with "writing complete thoughts" or "making illustrations" or anything like that. I'm assuming a right-handed fencer, so change all the rights to lefts and the lefts to rights if you are sinister.

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BASIC LEVEL

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THEORY

There are five core concepts here.

-POSITIONING: There is a line starting at their hilt and extending along their blade into infinity. Anything which brings your body in a direction that eventually would touch that line is "toward their sword" Anything which brings your body in a direction which would not eventually touch that line is "away from their sword". This can look a lot like stepping "behind" their sword, if you step toward their forearm behind their hilt, but for our purposes this is still "away from". Note that this means I am discarding the circle.

-BODY: Your body should be between your feet, and you should not be twisted in any fashion. If your right foot is in front of your left foot, you should be facing leftwards relative to your opponent. Don't twist your body. If you're putting your back foot forward, rotate your body with it. If you are stepping to the left with your left foot, you should rotate your body clockwise, if viewed from above. If you are stepping to the right with your left foot, you should be rotating your body counterclockwise, such that your back rotates forwards. This is similar to an Italian giarata.

-ACTION: All footwork should be linked to bladework. Footwork "toward their sword" should push their sword upwards or downwards. Footwork "away from their sword" should keep their blade to your left or right. Ideally, you will put their sword into a place such that any direction they can move it will bring it either farther from your body, or press into your sword in a way that they cannot muscle through.

-OPPOSITION: Most actions have an element of pushing their blade, or "opposition". All opposition should be done with the back edge of your blade, in a way that gets your sword "behind their sword". This is in the plane between their forearm and their sword, defined by the angle made at their wrist.

-ATTACKING: Thrusts and chops should be performed at a farther distance, while stepping with your right foot. slicing cuts and cross-body thrusts (including movements of conclusion) should be performed at a closer distance, while stepping with your left foot.

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GRIP

You should be grasping your sword generally in one of two ways. 

-THRUSTING: The first way has you holding your sword along the handle, with the blade pointing along your index finger. Your pinky and ring finger should be around the handle, your pommel running down the channel of your wrist, your middle finger wrapped around the quillon in front of your blade, your index finger along the side of your ricasso, and your thumb laying on the quillon next to the quillon block on the back side of your blade. You should be able to point your finger at a thing, and have the tip go to a place somewhat similar to where you are pointing.

-CUTTING: The second way has you holding your sword like a hammer, with the blade pointing along your thumb. The blade and grip of your sword should be lying across your palm, roughly from the dip between your index knuckle and the ridge of your thumb, down to the dip between your pinky knuckle and the lump on the wrist-and-pinky side of your hand. Your thumb should be pressing into the back of the ricasso or pulling on the quillon. Your index finger and middle finger should be wrapped around the ricasso, and your ring finger and pinky should be wrapped around the grip. Your tip should go somewhere similar to where you are pointing with your thumb.

You should also be able to transition between these two grips, and adopt various grips in between these two extremes.

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STANCE

-A: For these actions, the proper stance from out of measure should be one in which your tip is just below their hilt. You should start with your right foot forward, profiled to your opponent, with your body behind your hilt. Your arm should be straight, even if this means your shoulder is not at a perfect right angle. The reasons for this should become slightly more obvious as time passes. I also prefer to have my hand angled such that my back quillon is on top and angled to the right, and my front quillon is on the bottom and angled to the left.

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TECHNIQUES

If we keep the five pieces of theory in mind, we can distill it into four and a half actions. These actions fully and perfectly defend you from your opponent's sword. If your opponent is moving their sword to a place that is not defended, that is evidence that you should transition from one action to a different one, which will cover the hole created.

-ONE: This is the step "away from" their sword, using your right foot. Here, you put your tip directly above their hilt. It roughly corresponds to "Weak Above Strong". You should be defended by the fact that your opponent's sword will be angled away from you, and they will be forced to cross your hilt if they want to attempt to thrust.

-TWO: This is the step "toward" their sword, using your right foot. It roughly corresponds to "Line in Cross". Here, you push downwards on the middle part of their sword sword using your false edge and flat, with a relatively shallow angle. Here, you are defended by pushing them downwards appropriate to your distance, such that they need to do a large movement to attack directly. This generally forces your opponent to take their sword farther out of the line to attack you. You push more based on how close you are, but as a general thing, your hilt will be about as high up as theirs is, or perhaps a bit below theirs. The angle at the crossing, of the plane between your tips, should be relatively large - something like 135º. This might require pushing their sword left or right a bit before you push down.

-THREE: This is the step "away from" their sword, using your left foot. It, too, roughly corresponds to "Line in Cross" Here, you perform a wide, false-edge cutting motion to pull backwards to the point that your sword is at about 90º to their sword. Your arm should be forming an angle forward from your shoulder such that, if they attempt to yield around, you can pull your arm back a tiny bit and prevent them from reaching your body around your sword. You can push their sword with this, and probably will end up doing so a decent amount.

-FOUR: This is the step "toward" their sword, using your left foot. It doesn't really correspond to anything in destreza, except perhaps for some versions of the "Movement of Conclusion". Here, you are wrapping your false edge around their sword, and then ripping it very far down, out of your presence. You are defended by the fact that their sword is super low, and your sword is blocking the obvious disengage. Your quillon should be defending the direct line to you, and your blade should be holding their sword in the same place. This is a somewhat awkward movement, but it makes it super easy to grab their hilt with your left hand.

-GATHER: This is a gathering step. If you execute One, then you need to perform a gathering step before you can execute a One or a Two. Or, you could just perform a Three or a Four. Basically, you can't step with the same foot twice without a gathering step. You can, however, perform any action which corresponds to the foot you have forward, when you gather.

In general, each of these actions also roughly corresponds to an attack. One to the Thrust, Two to the Chop, Three to the Slicing Cut, and Four to the Conclusion. If the positioning is correct, though, either attack associated with the appropriate foot can be done. They also roughly correspond to distances - One to the farthest distance, and closer and closer until we reach Four. For the gathering step, you can perform any attack associated with the foot which is forward. Lastly, these actions form a rough gradient of grip - One representing the Thrusting grip, Four representing the Cutting grip, and Two and Three somewhere in between.

For the destreza folks out there - yes, this does mean that I'm suggesting transitioning between "Line in Cross" and "Weak Above Strong". This is against Viedma's advice, so we'll see if this ends up being terribly wrong.

tl;dr summary: Right foot forward is smaller defensive actions, left foot forward is bigger defensive actions.

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MORE ADVANCED STUFF

This is stuff I am less sure about. Keep in mind that "Advanced" doesn't necessarily mean "better". It just means "things which are applicable in a far smaller list of circumstances".

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I lied to you earlier, though. Those top four actions are the "best" actions. There are four more actions which are the "from below" variants of the above. In general, if you are fighting single against single, or you have similar reach to your opponent, you only need the above. Even when fighting single against non-single forms, the above is an excellent start, and should get you very far.

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ACTIONS, PART 2

The below four "secondary" actions are useful because they, in general, don't require you to defend as much space. They also allow you to do neat circular bladework by transitioning from one of the first four into one of the last four, which is useful when you need to tie up two swords. They are by and large worse than the first four actions, but there are circumstances where they are necessary. Especially when your opponent has an active off-hand, or an active secondary weapon.

-FIVE: Five corresponds to One. Here, you are putting your tip under their hilt while stepping away from their blade, with your right foot. In general, you should rotate your hand so that your back quillon is pointing to the upper-left if you are stepping around to the outside against another righty. So basically, if you are striking to the top, you should "block off" their line upwards, and if you are striking to the bottom, you should "block off" their line downwards with your quillons. This does mean that on the inside line your direction of quillons is reversed. Basically, your quillon angulation should resemble a diamond around their sword, depending on where you strike.

-SIX: Six corresponds to Two. Here, you are sweeping their sword from under, lightly upwards, with the false edge of your sword. You are stepping towards their blade with your right foot. You should be defended in the same way you are defended with Two - pushing them off-line upwards just enough that they can't stab you in the direct line, so they are required to disengage. The angle between your tips should be similar, though here you don't need to do nearly as much pushing-upwards as you need to do pushing-downwards for Two. The reason for this is that there is much less area for you to be stabbed above your shoulder, when compared to your chest and gut below your shoulder. This means you can be a bit more on-line with this - useful if you are out-ranged by your opponent. If you are not out-ranged, being more on-line with your tip might lead to your opponent gaining a strong opposition or using their off-hand. This would be sad.

-SEVEN: Seven corresponds to Three. Here, you are stepping away from their blade with your left foot, blocking them from attacking you by creating a wide line with the false edge. Your hand should be raised a bit, and your tip should be closer to the ground than your hilt. This is the most different of all of these four - instead of having to cover your entire body, you just have to cover your head and be prepared for this disengage. Similarly to Six, you can have your tip farther forward if your opponent's blade is longer, but caution should be used if your opponent's sword is not longer, because they may gain opposition on you.

-EIGHT: Eight corresponds to Four. Here, you are stepping toward their blade with your left foot, raising their sword upwards. You should be raising their sword with the back-edge quillon and false edge of your blade. If your left foot is to the left of your right foot, your quillon should be to the left of their blade and most of your blade should be to the right. If your left foot is to the right of your right foot, your quillon should be to the right on their blade, and most of your blade to the left of their blade. This seems backwards, but if you have their sword raised above your presence, it is more dangerous for them to disengage in a way that lets them stab you in the chest or gut, rather than in a way that stabs you in the flank. You are less profiled, in the former situation.

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ATTACKS, PART TWO

-THE THRUST: Oh, the thrust. There are two primary ways to execute the thrust. One is to thrust over or under their quillons with suitable coverage. One is to thrust over their mid-blade with suitable coverage.

When thrusting over or under their quillons, it is important to cover their blade with your quillons. Ideally, you would simply be thrusting over their quillons and just being done with it. But many times, that will not happen. On the inside line against righties, this is rare. The primary essential part of this is to keep the line from your left shoulder, through your right shoulder, and to your quillons, aimed at their hilt and quillons. You can bend and angulate your wrist as needed, to stab your foe, so long as you maintain appropriate quillon posture. This means that, when circling to the inside against a righty, your back quillon will be pointed mostly upwards, and when circling to the inside against a lefty, you will rotate your hand into something similar to an Italian prima, and your back quillon will point toward the ground.

This might also happen when fighting a righty and circling to the outside, but that is less likely. As well, when circling to the outside against a lefty, your back quillon might end up being vertical, but this is also rare.

When thrusting over the mid-blade, it is important to be sure that your opponent will not be able to angle under or over your sword to stab you. This can be difficult, and can require you to lower your hand to your hip or raise it above your head. This operation is one to be undertaken only when you are sure that the angles will work out. If they do not seem as though they will, abandon this course of action and switch to a Three or a Four instead. Or even a One. Anything else, really.

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STANCES, PART TWO

-STANCE B: This is a stance for when either your opponent has much more reach than you, or you do not have faith in your ability to stab them except for as a counter-attack. The theory of this stance is somewhat simple - you create an invitation and execute a parry that cannot reasonably be gotten around. This is executed thus - with your left foot forward and to the left, lower and bring your right arm across your chest, such that your right hand is near your left hip, but still extended straight. Edge forward with tiny steps until just before your opponent will be able to stab you by a leaning thrust. Then execute a Three. This can be done to the left or to the right, but to the left is usually better. This will put you into a position to perform a right-foot action such as a One or a Two. Further plays proceed from there.

This stance can be performed either with your left foot forward and to the right, but it is much more awkward.

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THEORY, PART TWO

-REACH: When your opponent out-reaches you, pursue them. If they out-reach you by more than six inches, almost exclusively use techniques which involve stepping toward their blade. If you out-reach them by the same margin, almost exclusively use techniques which involve stepping away from their blade.

-DAGGER: Keep your left hand high and to the inside, next to your right elbow, to deflect attacks during the measure that your opponent can hit you, but you might not be able or prepared to hit them. Do not break your profile to better use your dagger. This will happen naturally, as you perform left-foot steps which are to the left of your right foot. In stance B, keep your dagger in the same place it would be for stance A, despite the fact that your arm has moved. This way, it will not get in the way of your sweeping Three. Keep in mind that all of these techniques should also be applicable to daggers, with the stepping reversed if the dagger is in your off-hand.

-STEPPING: What I said earlier about not twisting your body was not incorrect, but it wasn't the whole truth. In truth, you can cross-step, it just is a very niche action. In general, a Twist is performed when you wish to perform a left-foot technique with your right foot forward, and vice versa. A Twist is performed by rotating your hips while maintaining your feet in the same position. This can mean crossing at the shins and dropping your body lower. You can also perform a Twisting Step, by rotating your hips in the opposite direction that would normally be dictated by your step. The thing to keep in mind here is that frequently, this is a bad idea. It reduces the size of your current step in favor of making your next step larger. It is still not a good idea to rotate with your waist or back, though. That destroys your profile, making many techniques less effective.

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ACTIONS, PART THREE

-TWIST: A Twist can be performed as part of a Step, a Gather, or just by itself. It is performed by rotating your hips by a movement of your legs, in the opposite direction than would be dictated by the position of your feet. So, if you start with your left foot and left hip forward, after a twist or twisting gather, you would have your left foot and your right hip forward. This allows you to do right-foot-forward techniques, when in actuality your left foot is forward. Similarly, starting from the same left-left-forward position, a twisting step would end with your right foot forward and your left hip remaining forward.

This allows for repeating the same footedness of actions multiple times. It would allow for a One followed by a One, Two, Five, or Six. Again, due to the slowness and awkwardness of the step, it is not highly advised. One place it can be useful is against an opponent who out-reaches you. You can use it for advancing into just outside of your opponent's leaning-thrust measure, to allow for an explosive action to carry you through the area where they may be able to hit you, but you cannot hit them.

*****

This is as far as I've gotten in over-thinking this New Simplified Destreza. I have been trying to think through how to fight against sword and dagger, and how to fight against case of rapiers, but there is a lot of work remaining there. Essentially, a dagger is a rapier that cannot really have opposition applied to it, but that doesn't need to be worried about until you get into a closer measure. For case, you need to do things which are simultaneously two front-foot or back-foot actions - Both a One and a Two, or both a Three and a Four.

I'm sure that over Pennsic I'll continue working on this. But for the moment, it is beautiful in its semi-completeness. When fencing single rapier versus single rapier at relatively matched reach, it seems good to focus on only the first four techniques and to ignore such complexities as the Twist. I hope to continue working this as a solid, workable thing, and to see my understanding grow.

If anybody wishes for me to teach these techniques, feel free to ask and I will be happy to. By teaching them, I refine my understanding of them, and my understanding of my own assumptions. This allows me to further improve myself.

HAVE GOOD SWORDS.

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!