Relating Italian Tempo and Spanish Distance

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

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

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

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

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

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

Capoferro Plate 11, From Wiktenauer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Available here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Have a good day, and fence well.