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.

Hundredth Published Post

Oh hey cool. This is the hundredth published post on the modern incarnation of my blog. I've been sword-blogging, off and on again, for nearly three years. My three-year blogiversary will be the 24th of February.

YAY!

Photograph copyright 2016 by Meredith Bailin Hull, who is awesome.

This is a photo from my OGR ceremony at Pennsic. One of the most joyful moments of my life, if I'm being perfectly honest.

I thought I'd take some time here and now to talk about a retrospective of my blog, because it is a useful exercise to look back at What Has Gone Before. And while meta is murder, one or two posts out of a hundred in service of The Art isn't that bad.

This blog started on a whim. I decided that I was frustrated that I didn't understand how to fence Destreza, so I wrote a flippant post on a tumblr I made in order to antagonize people who fence Destreza into defending their Art and addressing my concerns. It didn't really work, but it meant that I created a tumblr.

A year later, I started writing in it more, because I had many fencing thoughts and generally people didn't want to discuss fencing with me as much as I wanted to discuss random fencing theory. This became doubly true as I gradually realized that the work I truly enjoyed was entirely ignoring the established work of modern HEMA interpretations, in favor of creating my own. The joy in the work became the feedback loop of making a theory, testing it, and either refining it or scrapping it based on my results.

Indeed, I have created interpretations which "fly in the face of reason". This is part of the fun of the self-directed learning that our largely unstructured environment allows. Additionally, this self-directed interpretation makes life that much more exciting when I run across an instance of parallel construction of techniques in a historical manual, or in the teachings of another person.

There are downsides to my approach. There's a lot of back-tracking and deleting things which are just bad from my game. But I think it's worth it.

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Anyhow, for my 100th post, I wanted to grab a representative set of posts so that I could link them to people relatively quickly, and give people an overview of my blog. My blog currently only gets linked by my G+ account, and I'm thinking of linking it on Facebook, so having this as the first post people see would be useful.

• The Tumblr Days
• Bargain-Basement Destreza, part 1!
• Here it is. The post that started it all. In those days I had a far more flippant style. I had intended this blog to be overblown criticisms of various fencing styles, but that ended relatively swiftly. I eventually moved to Blogger because tumblr's comment system is the worst.
• The Tempest
• This is a bit of an interesting, non-standard post. Here, I detail one of the many things I did outside of my fencing in order to improve my fencing. At the time, I was feeling a lot of Tournament Anxiety. I chose to face a more intense form of public performance, so fencing in front of people would feel comparatively easy.
• Principles of Motion
• One of my first theory-posts. Here, I classify various mistakes that people make when fencing. I don't really use about the principles I outline here directly any more, but this post has historical importance to me. Also, the title is a nerdy reference to a role-playing game.

• Practice Reports
• Monday Practice
• This post contains an example of the all-important plus-minus-plus method for making oneself feel better about a terrible practice. I suggest you read it and make use of the plus-minus-plus method in your own fencing, and life in general. It sounds really dumb, and feels super awkward to do, but I swear it works.
• How to Fight Like a Lupold
• A bit of a weird practice report. This post outlines the full flowchart of how I used to fight, a few years ago. It uses terminology that rose fully-formed from my brain, to describe techniques which work well from a pragmatic viewpoint. There are a few fatal flaws with this style, but it's still a fun way to fight without having to think.

• Historical(-ish) Work
• Lupold's Simplified Bargain-Basement Destreza
• While I have come to believe that this is an incorrect interpretation of how to fight in a Spanish way, it's still a useful and interesting compendium of a complete style, detailed in the way I like to write. The reason I believe it is incorrect is because it doesn't work against the ideas raised in the below post, Penetration, Width, and Parallax.
• Fabris is Hard
• In the "Flying in the Face of Reason" category of things, I decided that guards are boring and skipped Fabris Book 1 after reading through it about 1/4 of the way. Onwards to Fabris Book 2! Here, I break down Fabris's Principles for Proceeding with Resolution into a set of simple mnemonics. This isn't detailed by any means,  but it's a useful reference-post.
• Fabris Principle 1
• This is an excruciatingly detailed breakdown of Fabris's Principle 1 for Proceeding with Resolution with Single Sword. It's intended to be used as a reference, so that you can take it in and drill portions of the Principle with a partner or practice dummy, eventually leading into drilling the entire thing based on your opponent's reactions.
• Quick Notes on Daggers
• I got salty about people on the internet saying that SCA daggers were too long, and wanted to compose a central repository of information stating that that, in the Spanish tradition, daggers are very long. If ever I started doing Sword Arts & Sciences, I'd probably use this post as a basis for whatever paper I wrote.

• Principles of Fencing
• Triangular Thrusts OR Opposition in Motion
• This post. I love this post above all other posts. Some day, I will actually finish filling in the illustrations that go with it. This post details how one can strictly win in a subset of relative guard positions. It is as close as possible to Truth that I have found in fencing.
• Touch, Small Angle, Large Angle, Renegotiate
• This is a decent post. It is very succinct, and describes a way of thinking about defense and attack in a very general, readable sense. I'm also pretty sure I was polled on the OGR list around when this post happened, because traffic to my blog briefly increased around this time.
• Penetration, Width, and Parallax
• My current baby. Here, I break down the three ways to overcome defenses, and the way to defend against each. I use bro-math to determine exactly how far one needs to parry in various circumstances. All of this is in service of attempting to learn how to use a shorter weapon, so I can better teach people how to beat people who outreach them.

And that's my blog. I feel good about the writing I've done on it. It is good work. It has improved my fencing. Some day I want to compose a book out of the contents of this blog, when I grow a bit more sure of myself and my fencing. I realize that nobody will read it, but having a book would make me feel good about myself.

Good job, Lupold. Good blog.