Quick Report on Things

The first Thing did not work so well. This is because a false-edge cut on their blade with an effective amounts of force is super hard to perform if they are thrusting or stationary. Maybe this would work better with a full-circle cut, rather than a half-circle cut. Maybe this is a lost cause for the situation I'm trying to apply it to. It requires such a hard body-void to make things work.

The second Thing I did not end up trying very much. It made many situations feel much more dangerous, which was not great. I would need to perform so much more geometry to use this that I am electing to not mess with it for now. It would essentially be a new style, centering around rotating from the wrist around the point of balance of one's blade. And while it seems like an interesting style that I have already learned elementary bits of, I'm not ready to commit to it yet.

The third Thing has promise. I feel as though it might be better with the more German-ish thumb-on-the-ricasso grip, rather than my standard Rada-esque index-finger-on-the-side-of-the-ricasso grip. That would involve learning to use the fullness of the thumb-on-ricasso grip, which can be a long-term goal, but not a short-term one. Despite the fact that technically Rada uses the thumb-on-ricasso grip as well. Hm.

Perhaps placing my flat or false edge toward my opponent's blade would be easier on my wrist? One of the problems is that it feels weak against my opponent's blade. In retrospect, though, I'm not sure that actually caused any real problems for my opposition. I think that this is a thing which deserves more study, so I should spend serious time fighitng in this guard in practice, and then flow-charting out possible responses and possible good choices for my opponent in response to this.

As well, I did some good work in working through a couple of situations that were gnawing at the back of my brain.

The response I came up with against sword-first dagger-back guard seemed to work well, with the caveat that it is absolutely vital that I not initiate the action if my sword is farther toward their guard than about 5/8 of the way down their blade. This is different from my normal ideal zone of opposition - here, I want to take opposition about 5/8 of the way down their blade to about 1/8 of the way down their blade.

The action is a passing diagonal step to the left, at the same time taking their blade in the specified area and using the natural rotation of my body from the passing step to interpose my dagger such that a disengage or thrust to my flank is impossible. If I gain opposition any farther back, then it seems possible for them to lever my blade out of the way and thrust. If I do oppose correctly, their only option is a two-tempo parry-riposte, which I should be able to move my dagger to catch in time, leaving my sword at liberty.

Much thanks to the unnamed fencer who helped me sort this out.

The confusing situation which happened a few weeks ago, in which my hilt-first disengage completely did not do the defensive things that it should have done, and also completely jacked an unnamed fencer in the ribs, has been solved. The issue was that my opponent threw a thrust in prima. which meant that my push toward his hilt completely missed. Additionally, I did not perform the appropriate oblique left-foot step that this action should require. I think that a diagonal rightward lunge would also have worked, but we were in too close quarters to do that.

I need to make sure that I perform my footwork in fighting exactly how I perform it in my at-home drilling. Because at home, I do that step all the time. In combat, it's hard to do that step unless your opponent is coming in on you.

Additionally, I'm not sure that pushing my hilt toward their sword is always the best option. I believe that the straight-upward raise blocks off actions in prima far more effectively. It also restricts their sword to the half of my body which is far away, meaning that it is much more likely that my dagger can pick them up. I need to think Very Hard about this, because that hilt-first disengage is one of my bread-and-butter techniques in tournaments.

Random Arbitrary List of Things to Try

Thing 1: A type of false-edge cutting parry progressing smoothly into an offense of one's own.

First off, there is a video showing Puck Curtis doing some magic:

Defeating a circular reves with a tajo (and again using the same setup to defeat it with a medio reves).
Posted by Puck Curtis on Thursday, May 7, 2015

Paraphrasing Puck's explanation into less Destreza-coded terminology goes something like this:

• Puck takes his opponent's blade to the inside.
• His opponent, needing to extract his blade, takes a step and pulls his blade away using only his wrist, without making further contact with Puck's blade. This motion is intended to end in a left-to-right cut on Puck's face.
• Puck performs a wrist movement to get his tip from one side of his opponent's body to the other. 
• Then, he performs a false-edge cut into his opponent's blade as his opponent's cut is about 1/4 of a circle from completion. This disrupts the cut, because it is force perpendicular to the force of the cut.
• Then, Puck uses the continuing motion of his sword to perform a similar cut of his own, this time right-to-left

The false-edge disruption is very interesting. It means that the second half of a Destreza-style tajo or reves doesn't need to be the part which defends against your opponent's action. This means that with an appropriate wrist flick, you could turn the second half of the cut cut into a whip-thrust, as follows:

• Begin cutting from right to left, with your blade starting near your head (180 degrees from target).
• Just after you reach pass through 90 degrees from target, push your hand to the right, allowing the point of balance of the blade to continue spinning.
• Let the tip land on your target.

Of course, this form of whip-thrust will land a bit hard if you do not practice superior control of it. So control it, and everything will be fine.

I feel like this form of false-edge parry-or-beat into whip-thrust might have interesting application in the Italian style. In particular for hilt-higher-than-point guards, which I have reason to believe would be useful against left-handed fencers.

Thing 2: Guards in which your point is lower than your hilt, against left-handed fencers.

Recently, I have been having more and more relative trouble performing geometry against left-handed fencers. I have come to believe that this is because, against a left-handed fencer, it is possible for a fight to be nearly mirrored. As such, it is very difficult to gain any real opposition. Additionally, both fencers face the inside-line problem.

That is to say, there is no line that I can draw from my hand through the weak of my opponent's sword which connects to their body, if they are fencing correctly. This, of course, being the safest way to stab your opponent in my opinion. I feel as though this is because of the above-mentioned mirror issue. A supinated guard or other guard in which one's point is lower than one's hilt would create an element of "opposite-ness", which my intuition tells me should be exploitable. However, the action outlined in the next thing might be better for this.

Afterthought: Maybe in the spirit of Giganti's bastard guards between seconda and terza and terza and quarta, I should try a bastard guard between prima and seconda or between prima and quarta? It sounds awkward, but it also sounds fun.

Thing 3: An inside guard in which the hilt is far to the left and the tip is far to the right.

I have a well-known hatred for the inside line. I believe it is a source primarily of double-kills. This is because in standard tournament-fighting, one takes the inside line to the far left. This puts you in a similar position as against a left-handed fighter. There is no connecting line from your hand through your opponent's weak, into your opponent. However, I have seen a particular guard performed before, and I could have sworn that I just read about it in Capoferro's treatise. However I cannot find it, thus I shall describe it as follows.

Adopt a standard Giganti guard on the outside, as though you are facing an opponent who is also guarding on the outside. Your hand should be slightly to the right. Your tip should sort of be pointing above their right shoulder, such that they cannot thrust without encountering your blade. Then, turn your hand to terza-quarta guard. Note how far to the left your tip is, and how far to the right your hand is. Readjust such that your hand is as far to the left as your tip was, and your tip is as far to the right as your hand was. This will be an awkward position for your wrist. Deal with it.

This position makes it difficult for your opponent to gain satisfactory opposition. From this location if your opponent is lax in their guard, it should be possible to draw a line connecting your hand to your opponent through their sword. If you find them in such a position, perhaps you should oblige their invitation by stabbing them in the face. If your opponent does attempt to gain opposition, an inquartata-step (step forward and to the right with your left foot, so they end up about the same distance from your opponent) to the right should be sufficient to nullify their opposition. If they disengage, you can easily unroll into a thrust in seconda that should easily catch their disengage.

Obviously this all requires quite a bit of play and testing. But I am willing to do this, if for no reason other than the fact that this guard seems like it will behave similarly to my beloved outside line.

Post-Monday Practice Report

This last practice was so good. I am currently on a diet because I am above my ideal weight. I didn't really feel the effects of low blood sugar like I thought I would, though. This might be because of the SFRB (Sugar-Free Red Bull) I chugged on the way to practice. Regardless, I didn't feel slower than usual, which tells me that loading up with carbs before practice can be replaced with SFRB.

I played with my newly-constructed longsword handle. It was pretty great! I threw one hard thrust, which I think was hard partly because of the angle of the shot and partly because of where the shot landed. I didn't really feel that limited by not having a dagger. The heavier, stiffer blade with the two-handed handle allowed me to simply win at opposition most of the time.

I did some Meyer stuff too - a Krumphauw into a false-edge-leading thrust ended up being surprisingly effective. There were several cuts and thrusts that I simply didn't throw out there, though, because I wasn't sure I could perform them in a way that would land with the tip safely. I could hit with the edge with good calibration I think, but I need more practice to hit with the tip after a properly-performed Zornhauw with good calibration. And to do that, I need to use a practice space with a higher roof than my living room has.

Last longsword thought - I think that a longsword might be more effective than my standard rapier game against left-handed people. This is because right-handed cuts seem to cut cross the plane of a left-handed person's rapier more than a right-handed person's rapier. This is a random thought, and requires further investigation.

The rest of the practice was fought sword and dagger. I fought quite a few people who I have fought before, and they all are doing super well. I need to step up my game. In particular, there was one fight in which I was doing my little hilt-first disengage as a first-intention shot, and my opponent just threw out a cut to my blade in response. This put me way off line and allowed her to cut me, even though her thrust went past my head. I need to contemplate this particular response, and see if there is anything I can do about it. If not, then I will only be able to use my hilt-first disengage as part of a second intention, after I have gotten a feel for where my opponent's sword is.

I also fought against another guy who primarily fights in the HEMA/WMA community. Those fights were super interesting. I didn't realize until part of the way through that he was fighting a slightly different ruleset that took percussive hits, mostly ignored cuts, and mostly ignored hand and arm shots. That's okay though! It just meant that he and I walked away with a different idea of our win/loss percentage. If this were a tournament, I would be super salty about it. But it wasn't, and I'm not out to prove something, so it's okay.

I significantly disagree with not taking hand-shots as a ruleset, though. I think it encourages poor form. Capoferro advises that you perform them, and I believe he even advises them primarily against stances where your opponent's dagger is in front, which is a stance which gives me quite a bit of trouble. (If I am incorrect here, someone please correct me.)

Afterwards I caught up to him because I wanted to try working through a particular action in response to his particular stance. He did the teacher thing of going through a lesson he thought was more relevant, rather than the particular isolated set of actions which I wanted to try. It was an interesting lesson about passing steps and two-tempo parry-ripostes. The end result was that his response would have been something I didn't expect. But it still didn't answer my question really.

I like to imagine that I operate from a model based on Meyer's idea of the master cuts. That is to say, a master cut is one which will both defend you and kill the other guy, if correctly performed in the correct situation. When I am working through a particular situation, I try to figure out what the appropriate "master thrust" would be. That is to say, the action which, properly executed, will prevent me from being stabbed no matter what my opponent does, and has a decent chance of success.

Given that, and given the dagger-forward position I was having trouble with, I wanted to see if a passing step to the left with a chest-level thrust with the sword held low and the dagger brought in against the sword to sweep the expected disengage, would have worked. His response was a two-tempo parry-riposte. I'm not sure that would have been applicable given the location and direction of opposition I had wanted. I am sure I will ask someone to work through that particular action with me at some point.

I also had a few good talks about headspace in tournaments. I think I do well at this thing, so maybe I should meditate on that and make a post or something.

Things to work on for the future:

• Appropriate responses to Silver-esque dagger-forward stances.
• It seems like there's a continuum of responses, wherein dagger slightly forward gives an advantage against a Capoferro stance in third, and dagger very forward in a Silver-esque stance gives even more advantage against that. Is there a good response other than reverting to Capoferro in third and hand-sniping?
• It feels like left-handed people are automatically one step farther forward with their dagger, regardless of their actual stance. This is purely intuitive, but why do things feel this way? Again, is there a good response for me?
• More flowcharting on hilt-first disengage.

On Double-Kills

I am known to be an advocate of the art of rapier as described by Nicoletto Giganti. He provides the most succinct description of how to fight rapier of any master. With only a few exceptions, I find his first work to be excellent in all regards. As such, it should be no surprise that I turned to Giganti's text when I encountered a particular conundrum.

During Pennsic, I fought in the Ansteorran tournament. In one particular bout, I threw a thrust. A good few moments later, my opponent threw one. It made contact, but to my perception it was thrown after my shot had landed, so I called it "late". His response was that he "didn't do late". Frustrated, I fought him again and eventually won definitively. When I tried to explain the concept of "late" to him, I found that I did not have a good answer for why we do "late" in the SCA, aside from as a holdover from modern fencing.

Sure, it's cultural. But why is it there? What aspect of rapier fighting is captured in the concept of "late"? To answer this, I turn to Giganti. There is a particular notable commonality among almost all of Giganti's plates. Have a look.

[Giganti, Plate 5]
I'm sure it's running through the back of your head.

If you truly run someone through with a rapier, this generally places your body past the tip of their sword. This is depicted in almost every single plate of Giganti's text. Giganti shows the further precaution of placing your sword or hand in such a way that they cannot complete a cut from the elbow, as well - a sign showing exactly how concerned with after-blows and double-kills Giganti is.

[Giganti, Plate 16]
Run them through, reinforce.

If we stop our strikes like we do in SCA rapier, at a point where our tip is just barely touching our opponent, we lose that defensive advantage we would gain by moving past their tip. And then, with a flick of the wrist in an already-moving counter-thrust, our opponent can tap us on the nose in an after-blow that would not have hit if we had actually run them through.

[Giganti, Plate 20]
Attempting the action outlined on plate 20 without ending well past their tip is a sure recipe for disaster!


As such, "late" prevents some forms of after-blow, but not all. It also doesn't prevent the after-blow in a natural way. Is there any way that we can prevent this form of after-blow in a natural way, rather than relying on the rules to cover us?

A quick and entirely non-scientific brainstorming session turns up the following remedies:

• Thrust, land your tip on your opponent lightly, and then keep pushing until your blade has a foot of bend in it.
• Thrust deeply, and break from the elbow such that your blade doesn't really bend much, but your body continues forward.
• Only fight with a far shorter blade against a longer blades. That way, when you make contact with their mask, it's as though you had already pierced them with a foot of steel.

Obviously, there are problems with each of these. The first results in suboptimal blade geometry for parrying, as well as stiff shots regardless of how it lands originally. The second results in parrying with a significantly weaker part of the blade in some instances. I prefer the second, as it places less stress on my blade, but I would like to figure out better solutions if any exist. I have not thoroughly read Capoferro, but I image that with the amount of voiding he depicts, this would be an even greater issue for practitioners of his methods.

I have no complete, good answer. But writing this article has helped me figure out what I plan to do next. I hope that it has been at least a bit interesting for you, the reader.

(All plates Giganti herein depicted are available for viewing here. The Capoferro plate depicted is from Wiktenauer, a resource you should probably already know about.)
(My preferred translation of Giganti is the one by Tom Leoni. It's pretty much the best book you can acquire. Purchase it here.)

Notes from Casual Fencing at K&Q Equestrian & Thrown Weapons

There was some casual fencing at the event I went to earlier today. In order to make sure I retain this information, I am noting it down here.

I have been performing the action which I have been calling a "yield" incorrectly. Where previously I was both covering myself and escaping from my blade being covered by simply raising my hilt vertically, I have found that this is incorrect.

The appropriate way to perform this action is to push my hilt directly in the direction of my opponent's sword. This allows me to simply glide my hilt down their blade until my tip touches them. The old way of doing this left a gap in my guard which certain fencers have been able to ruthlessly take advantage of. This method of performing the "yield" makes it applicable to shorter weapons, where previously it was not.

Heresy of the Day

All competitive games are the same, at heart. The difference is in the way that you interface with the game. That search for different ways to interface with the game is the interesting part of competitive games. Competitions are tests of the validity of your lexicon. Practice is for finding new things to add to your lexicon.

In this terminology, a disengage is one action in your lexicon. As is a lunge. Period manuals provide pre-made lexicons, which have many valid actions and some invalid actions. Some actions are valid for some people, but not valid for others. If an action doesn't work, then either it is a bad action or I don't understand the principle behind the action. There are enough ways to generate new actions that it's not worth my time to try to sort out which category an unusable action falls into. Most actions are not applicable in all situations.

That is all.

The Meta-Game, Part 1: The True Game

The standard disclaimer for my fencing-philosophy posts applies. That is to say, you are likely to disagree with this post, but I have found these things to be Good and True thus far. They are here for you to peruse and either accept or reject, as you wish.

In all competitive games, there are "good" moves and there are "bad" moves. These change depending on positioning, for any interesting game. In SCA fencing, a good example of a "bad" move is remaining still when your opponent is thrusting into your face. Similarly, a "good" move would be anything that prevents you from being stabbed, while the "best" move would be to do something that causes you to live, but also causes your opponent to be stabbed. A single-tempo parry-riposte is an example of such a movement. But let's pause there for a moment.

There is a concept of "bad", "good", and "best" moves. However, if your opponent knows what you are going to do, they can frequently thwart your move, even if it's the "best" move. This leads to a game of anticipation, which we will return to in a moment.

The Problem Space

What defines the "best" move? In general, it is the maneuver that has the highest chance of success, if your opponent is solely reacting to the current situation, rather than trying to predict your next move. "Success" is intentionally ill-defined here. For me, I value not dying over killing my opponent in most instances. Sometimes you want to maximize the chance that you will kill your opponent, even if that will result in your death. So, the "best" move is the one with the highest "success" rate in the problem space.

What is the problem space? The problem space simply put, is the list of all actions that your opponent could take. For the China Miéville fans out there, imagine the Possible Sword from The Scar. Imagine your opponent's sword, arm, and body blossoming outwards in all of the directions that they could possibly move. That is the problem space.

The "best" move is the one which succeeds in as many of those possibilities as possible. A "perfect" move is one that thwarts literally all of those possibilities and forces your opponent to lose, regardless of the actions that they perform. This obviously excludes actions that are not in the rules of the game, like yelling out "HOLD" when you are about to die and such.

At this point it should be obvious why constraint is very important in fencing. If you can restrict the size of the problem space, it becomes much easier to react to the full problem space rather than having to just make a guess and go. This is why I personally love the outside line in Italian single rapier - it is a very restricted problem space, in which it is relatively clear to see when and how you can attack without dying.

The True Game

This is a concept I have mentioned before in practice reports, but I have never really defined. The "true" game, in any competitive game, is one in which you progressively try to restrict your opponent's options in different ways until you can take a "perfect" move and win the game. Similarly, your opponent will try the same thing. This requires a full knowledge of everything you can do with a sword. We can all aspire to playing the "true" game, but in our version of fencing, the problem space is wide enough that this is perhaps impossible. People can thwart your attempts to do this by using non-standard equipment or by assuming non-standard postures. We will get back to that in a moment.

The Anticipation Game

As I said above, at a certain point you will learn what the "best" response for your opponent is. Or at the very least, you will learn what they think the "best" response is. You then may decide to short-cut the issue and react to what you think they will do. And this will probably work, if your opponent is not a master. Similarly, your opponent may learn to try to trick you into reacting a certain way, and then respond to the reaction that they predict.

This is a degenerate game. I used to play this almost exclusively, and I play it when I get lazy. But it is degenerate and bad. You will hit a wall and be unable to climb it, if you try to play this.

Reacting to what you think your opponent will do might gain you success in the short-term. This game quickly gains feedback and static from how you and your opponent dance together. The things that you learn are "good" might just be cognitive hiccups in your opponent. Maybe that thing which you think is "bad" is just the thing your opponent expects you to do.

If you find your opponent playing an anticipation game, you need to learn to be a rock. You should learn to draw out your opponent's responses, and only respond after they actually move. You should learn the full space of things that your opponent could do, and then react in ways that restrict their options. This is a frustrating way to play, but it will make you lose less. This is different from winning more, and vastly preferable.

If you find yourself playing an anticipation game, you should stop. Fixing this requires you to think on what you do and what you react to. It requires you to figure out what the actual "good" and "perfect" responses are in your game. This is the hard mental work which lets you get better. If you are a historical practitioner, you should review your chosen master or masters. If you are carving your own path, you need to think harder.

Remember the thought-exercise of your opponent's arm blossoming out into all possibilities, and think about what you can do to restrict their movement. If you can't find a way to safely restrict your opponent's options, then you need to either find a new technique or you need to avoid that situation entirely. Random chance is anathema to victory.

The One-Off-From-True Anticipation Game

This bears special mention. If you understand the "true" game very well, then your Anticipation Game can be very, very good. You may beat much stronger fencers than you by anticipating their actions. It is debatable whether anticipating the best move of the "true" game is the actual best move. Giganti is in favor of this, saying that creating false openings so that you can anticipate your opponent's actions is a good idea, in plates 30, 31, and 32. I personally disagree with this, because if your opponent realizes your intent, they can foil your false opening. At that point it becomes a simple game of rock-paper-scissors rather than chess.

This also relies on your opponent fighting in a way that is inside of your local meta-game.

The Local Meta-Game

It is nigh-impossible to know what the shape of the "true" game is. This is the art to which we all aspire, but it will forever remain out of reach. When we get close to the "true" game, we form our own separate version of the "true" game, in which we use some and don't know their counters. To us, those maneuvers are "perfect".

But then Johnny Midrealm waltzes in and fences in an entirely different way. Nobody understands his game. Maybe he does well, maybe he does badly because he doesn't understand us either. Things get shaken up. Some things which we thought were good turn out to be terrible. The opposite is also true. Even if Johnny was trying to fence the "true" game as far as he knew it, it is very possible that these people fight entirely different ways. Both parties gain quite a bit from the experience, and both parties gain a better knowledge of the actual True Game.

The situation of being the only guy at a particular practice which does a particular thing is similar. The only lefty will know the left-versus-right fight better than the righties do, and righties will learn quite a bit from fighting them. The only longsword-user will know how to longsword super well, and have an advantage from that.

This is why both manuals and fighting people from other areas are the best. Those two things are the quickest way to shake up your internal understanding of the "true" game, and bring it closer to the actual True Game.

The True Game, Redux

The True Game is what you should be fighting, whatever that is. There are many paths to the True Game, and the shape of it is different depending on your opponent, but you should learn to fight in ways that are straightforward and right.

Perhaps some deceit is good as well, but if you fight the True Game then you will never have those moments of "aww, he anticipated my trick" because you never use "tricks". You learn from "tricks", and then you find the places that your "trick" is an unstoppable, crushing wall that cannot be escaped or circumvented. You learn principles and you learn to apply them on the fly to new situations, so that you are never surprised. You learn to adapt to the situation and strike true such that not only do you win, but you make it impossible for your opponent to win. You surgically remove chance and gambling until only victory remains.

You play chess, rather than rock-paper-scissors.