Pennsic Post?

I haven't done a Pennsic post because honestly, I didn't have enough time to really get out there and fence during this Pennsic. It was always far too hot, so even when the field wasn't closed I wasn't really able to put forth my best effort.

There are only really a few points worth mentioning.

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First, my champs fight. I lost against an opponent who out-played me. My head wasn't in the right space, and he has some real estate in my brain from previous encounters. He kept his sword offline up and to the right in a way that my current Fencing Game couldn't deal with. There are two things I could have done to overcome this.

1. Revert to my two-years-ago Fencing Game, in which my response would be to approach slowly with my blade farther off-line to the outside. Then, if he came on-line, I could thrust through his blade. If he remained where he was, I could perform a lunging giarata.
2. I could have brought out my longsword, knowing that he would probably not really have much experience dealing with people who have longer range, and knowing that my Effingham-style longsword techniques are rare to encounter in the wild.

Instead, I attempted to play my current game against him, and my current game apparently doesn't have a good way to deal with an opponent who keeps their sword off-line in that particular way and outranges me. I'll probably over-analyze the fight more when video happens, but that's all I've got for the moment.

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By the Book tournament was interesting. I tried to apply my new Bargain Basement Destreza, and it largely didn't work. I lost my first match soundly and firmly. My second match went 1-1, if I remember correctly, as did my third. My fourth went 2-0 in my favor, and then the tournament was called due to heat.

(Keep in mind that I'm using questionably-incorrect terminology defined in last post here, when I talk about Destreza Things.)

At the start of the tournament, I was trying to step based on a circle centered on my opponent. This didn't work quite as I expected - my opponents were relatively easily able to counter my Line in Cross -> Weak Over Strong and Narrowing -> Weak Under Strong. I think that this is because the "hole" in WOS and WUS is in the same place as the corresponding LiC or Narrowing - this means that moving to the attack would widen an already-existing hole that my opponent could start to exploit during my atajo, and then continue to exploit as I moved forward.

BEGIN DIGRESSION

As an aside, the Mutating Circle was stuck in my head all war as a brain-worm, so the above is applicable to my pickups, too.

I think the correct way to fix this would be to switch Weak Over Strong and Weak Under Strong in my default sequences. That is to say, change my sequences to Line in Cross -> Weak Under Strong and Narrowing -> Weak Over Strong. If I maintain some sort of crossing with my blade and theirs on the attack, this would allow me to plug the opening left by Line in Cross and Narrowing, while simultaneously attacking.

This is essentially the same insight I had about Destreza a while ago, which resulted in me performing windshield-wiper atajos. But I'm dumb sometimes, and I sacrifice correctness on the altar of idealogical cleanliness. Lesson learned.

END DIGRESSION

As the tournament went on, I started migrating more and more toward just using Weak Over Strong and Weak Under Strong, only using Line in Cross and Narrowing as last-ditch parries. I ended up with several victories due to hand-shots, which seems super correct and period given how cup hilts became more and more of A Thing in Destreza as time went on. I also was more and more patient, waiting for my opponent to mess up somehow so I could capitalize on their mistake.

I feel confident that if I had another shot, I could have performed far better in that tournament. I would make sure to warm up this time.

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Lastly, the Mutating Circle in my Italian game. The Mutating Circle was a brain-worm all war. The idea is that, depending on where my opponent's tip is in relation to their shoulder, I should be able to approach and attack in a set of particular ways, as dictated by the circle of Destreza. This is a mixing of historical styles, but it comes with good reason.

Essentially, Italian opposition and blade-coverage doesn't work properly when your opponent has their sword far off-line. This leads to double-kills. Far, far too many of them, if your opponent is good at bringing their sword offensively on-line from an off-line position. This becomes a semi-viable game plan if you happen to be good at defending with your off-hand or off-hand implement. In fact, it's the way I used to fence. Past tense. When I first moved out to the East. It's also an extremely common way to fence in the Midrealm.

The circle of Destreza, as I understand it, is a defensive tool. If you keep your sword toward the center of the circle, covering your opponent's sword and walk around the circumference, you are increasing the distance your opponent's sword needs to travel to stab you, while decreasing the distance between you and your opponent and how far your sword needs to travel to stab them. Since the circle doesn't rely on any particular movement from your opponent, you should be able to step in at any part of the circle and continue as if you had started from the outside.

Image stolen from Black Birds and Blades, which is the second result on Google when I search "viedma circle".

Also, seeing the actual physical version of this that Doroga made was super great, and we nerded out over it for a long while.

So, if my opponent's sword is off to the side, I can step on to the edge of the circle and defend myself as though I have walked around it. Instead of assuming that their shoulder, tip, and my shoulder all lie on the line from A to A, I assume that I'm somewhere off to the right of the circle and step from outside of the circle directly on to point C to the right, imagining that their shoulder and the tip of their sword lie along that A-to-A line.

The problem I have run into is that my opponent can force me into a bad choice, if I step onto the circle at C when my opponent is far off-line, they can thrust with opposition through my sword at my face. This is obviously a bad thing, so I am required to throw a cut or thrust that raises my hilt to defend my face. This opens up my belly, which they can then thrust at.

I *think* that one of two things is happening here.

1. My mental model of the circle is wrong. I think I'm stepping onto C, but I'm actually stepping somewhere in the vicinity of D, but not quite reaching the circle. This means I would need to fix my distance, and perhaps perform a cut while stepping away.
2. My understanding of how I can defend myself is wrong, as per my previous thoughts on Triangular Thrusts. That is to say - the placement of my blade can either defend me high, or it can defend me low, but due geometry I can't defend both.

So, I'll try to work through both of these and see what happens. If the problem is 1, then I need to change my stepping patterns somewhat. If my problem is 2, then I need to start doing Destreza in a Fabris stance, to minimize the amount vertical profile available to my opponent. I've noticed that doing Destreza things in a leaning-forward Fabris-esque stance does make things Just Work Better, though, so I might do that anyway.

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So, those are all of the things I was able to work on at Pennsic. Other topics of interest include:

1. Dealing with huge shields using long swords in singles fights.
2. Dealing with people who understand how to appropriately avoid blade contact when fighting Fabris-ish.
3. Dealing with that position used by my opponent in my Champs fight.
4. Dealing with left-handed people who perform a rising low-line shot.

That's for-realsies all I need to cover for this post. FOR REALSIES.

Lupold's Simplified Bargain-Basement Destreza

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

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

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

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

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THE STANCE

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


THE SUMMARY

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

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

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

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


ATAJOS

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

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

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

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

RANGE

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

STEPPING

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

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

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

DEFENDING

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

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

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

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

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

CUTTING

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

ATTACKING

There are two ways to attack. They are:

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

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

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

END OF AFTER-THE-FACT EDIT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

MUTATING THE CIRCLE

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

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

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

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

GAME PLAN

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

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

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

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

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

Footwork Chart for Fabris Rule #4 and Practice Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some additional notes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Things I want to work on:

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

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YAY SWORDS.

Practice Yesterday, With Video!

Practice yesterday was good. I authorized someone, and I attempted to use the new hilt-sweep-thrust thing that I described in a previous post. It worked okay. Then I started using the alternate versions of it, and those worked great.

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I did an exercise in which myself and my opponent fought without stopping or calling shots. It was interesting. It allowed for both of us to practice redoubling, even if our shot was pretty clearly successful. This is a good thing, because frequently there will be shots which look clear, but aren't good. Whether it's sleeve, or it looks like arm but is shoulder, or it's something else, double-tapping until they say "dead" is a good habit to get into.

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I also had a conversation in which I clarified the technique I described a few posts ago. I sometimes don't put terribly much effort into writing clearly, but it was interesting to see opinions of the technique. It certainly does seem Spanish-ish, but I'm unsure that there's any documentation that specifies exactly what I have been doing. It is possibly similar to Viedma's High General, comprised of Narrowing and Weak Above Strong, but it's done with the false edge, rather than the true edge.

Oh well. I'll give it more thought. I should probably review Spanish more.

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The fights which occupied most of my brain-cycles were myself with a short blade versus Aiden with two mid-size blades. He and I have been fighting this fight quite a bit - he has been working on his case game, and I have been trying to work out ways to beat case with single rapier, when you can't just out-range your opponent.

Here is some video from about a month ago:

In that video, I primarily try to Destreza at Aiden. We complete two points, and then we take a long-ish time to do a third.

Here is video from yesterday:

At the beginning I was trying to catch his blade with the New Thing, and this decidedly doesn't work due to his blade positioning. After about 2:40 or so, I started using more Fabris-ish stuff. After about 4:40, I started doing the thing correctly.

That is, using Fabris's Rules for Single, in particular the 3rd in which I don't adopt a guard until I'm in the process of stepping into Misura Larga, and the 4th in which I keep my sword below his until I take an offline step and take his sword from the outside. You will note me positioning my feet such that I can take a step to the left or to the right as I approach, by sometimes switching to have my left foot forward. This is to step toward the sword of his that is up, rather than the one which is down.

As a side-note, I wonder if I could step toward the sword which is low, if I took it from above? A thing to think about.

Monday, I was able to catch him with quick lashes inward of speed, but I guess I didn't see that as an option yesterday? As well, I have previously used Fabris's 5th and 6th rules with effectiveness, but I didn't do that yesterday and I'm not sure why. I think he has improved at counter-thrusting under my sword with his other sword, which would preclude usage of the 5th and 6th rules for single.

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For next Monday, I want to:

• Continue working single 37".
• Work on Tournament Brain, with emphasis on visualizing myself at Champs as a high-pressure situation.

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Anyhow, that's all I've got for now. Sword well!

Practice Yesterday, and Analytics!

Yesterday was a good practice. I spent the day thinking I wasn't going to go because my shin had been bothering me, and because it looked like it was going to thunderstorm. But it didn't! And using a bicycle inner-tube to force my hamstring to stretch actually helped my shin a bunch. Thanks, internet!

So as usual, I collected heart rate data using my fitbit. I fought six different people - first two fights were outside, then the next few were inside.

It's hard to draw straight lines on a phone screen

My first fight was against a shorter, long-time OGR. Those fights were really good. I did not ramp up my speed to 100%, which forced me to focus more on technique. I was trying to fight in a Destreza-ish way and also use the invitation I described last post, which didn't work super well due to how far below me her sword was. Short people with long swords continue to present a problem, especially when my sword is shorter than theirs.

My next set of fights was short single against case. It was a very mobile fight, and it looks like we paused in the middle of the fights for whatever reason. I had to use my mobility to force him to commit one sword, then use my sword to take the other one. Alternately, I had to push his swords together. Alternately, I had to use timing and burst down the center line super-fast. This continues to be an illuminating fight. I also continue to have more success being Fabris-ish against case with single, than being Destreza-ish. I tried to use the invitation thing as a multi-step process to get both of his swords, but it didn't work so well, partly because I have to think to set up the invitation.

My next set was against someone who had been fighting for a year. It went well - he kept surprising me by catching parries when we were in in-fighting range. After a bit, my invitation with my blade to the left stopped working, so I had to change the invitation such that my blade was to the right.

My next set was against a fighter who continually pushes my game to improve. I brought my standard long rapier and dagger against him. You will note that this set and the previous set were the ones where my heart rate peaked. After a certain point I was just exhausted - I couldn't cool off fast enough. I did some cool things with the mirrored invitation with blade to the right, but I think they worked well largely because he expected me to disengage and generally deny blade contact more. I feel like he took more passes than I did, and his game was pretty on-point.

My second-to-last set of fights was against an extremely skilled case fighter. He kept catching me on things that I have been able to deal with in the past, but my brain just wasn't in the fight because it was so ridiculously hot. Very good on him for that. He acknowledged that I seemed tired, and the fact that I couldn't get my heart rate to peak is probably physical evidence of that. So basically, I fought him with my dumb game and didn't use any of my cool new things, and he roflstomped me. I also tried to use mobility to neutralize one of his swords, and it just didn't work.

Plate on the left

My last set of fights was against another extremely skilled case fighter. He also roflstomped me, but I used the guard from Fabris plate 168 against him. Again I tried to use mobility to neutralize a sword, but I couldn't get it to work. I will be trying the mobility thing again against both my last and second-to-last opponent, when I am less tired and overheating. The guard seemed to work relatively well though - I would move in and explode my sword and dagger outwards, hopefully catching one of his swords with each of my instruments. It became a game in which either he was able to counter-punch me, or I was able to catch his swords. I think I need to be even more aggressive about moving forward, and I need to be willing to get into dagger range and dagger-lunge skilled case fighters. He certainly took more passes than I did, but I feel like I have a direction to move, learning-wise.

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It looks worse in person. But it doesn't hurt! So that's nice.

I apparently also took a super hard shot to my hand. After practice I noticed that on my glove and hand. I didn't notice anything super hard, but the nasty bruise on my knuckle and the blown-through kevlar on my glove say otherwise. I now believe that those gloves were worth every penny I paid for them, because that would be way worse if I had not had semi-rigid protection on my knuckles.

That's all I've got for the moment. Tune in next time, for more of the violence-things!

A Single-Tempo Hilt-Based Parry-Riposte

Today, I write about a couple of new and interesting modes of blade opposition involving heavy quillon usage. I got the idea from this by browsing a plate of Fabris, and from something I saw in a video of Ton Puey fighting, though for the life of me I can't find it again.

Plate 38, on the left

My copy of Leoni's Fabris translation is currently unavailable to me, so we go with guesswork and what-I-have-been-doing-recently.

The general idea is to create an invitation, and then, using your blade to limit where theirs can go, you take their blade by applying your quillon to it and thrust over their blade, between their blade and their arm. This invitation is made most effective by limiting your target area - that is to say, you know that there is only a certain area on your body that your opponent can hit, from various distances.

The invitation you create should cover all of those places, and then as you enter measure, you execute your thrust, walking forward with intent. Ideally, your positioning will allow you defend yourself regardless of whether or not they thrust, and if they do then you have stronger positioning by virtue of the fact that you are taking their blade with your quillon. So you want them to go for the thrust, and you are limiting the time in which they can perform the thrust, but even if they don't then it's not fatal.

This technique should be most effective when you have a weapon shorter than your opponent's weapon. And lastly, this technique should be able to be mirrored horizontally for usage against left-handed people, and mirrored vertically for use against people who want their blade below yours.

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The Technique

• Begin by placing your hilt in a position below their tip, and your tip in a position above their tip. Your blade should be to the left of theirs, but your positioning should force them to thrust above your blade if they wish to hit you.
• Additionally, this space through which they must thrust should be the space that you will be "sweeping" with your top quillon.
• Your quillon should be approaching parallel to the ground, with your fingernails up.
• Move forwards, such that you enter the "danger zone" in which your opponent can reach you, and are in the process of exiting the "danger zone" such that you are too close for your opponent's sword's tip to effectively touch you.
• Raise your hand at the same time you bend your wrist to lower your tip. Your false edge should touch their sword, but the true push should come from your top quillon pushing their sword upwards. You might have to move your hand left somewhat as you raise it, in order to gain the appropriate positioning.
• Your tip might end up lower than your hilt. This is a good thing.
• At this point, you should be stabbing your opponent, with their sword completely blocked-off. Good job.

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This technique seems applicable to both Italian and Spanish fencing. For the Spanish, the angle would be shallower, but it would be an effective counter to an opponent attempting to attack with detachment via Weak over Strong. The other versions of this, which I alluded to earlier, would also be useful here.

Additionally, it seems like you could use the principles here as yet another tool in the single-versus-case game, using this as a single-tempo parry/riposte against the front sword.

The advantage of this technique is that it works slightly better if your opponent does nothing. As well, it is much harder for your opponent to regain strength, since your tip is angled downwards. The disadvantage is that it requires you to anticipate your opponent's action, and doesn't branch naturally from parrying.

This is an interesting technique, because it emphasizes knowledge of measure and anticipation of action. After all, if your opponent doesn't thrust, then you will still be blocking them out with your hilt.

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My left shin is unhappy, so I won't be using this as effectively tonight as I would normally. I will likely be fighting primarily Spanish, since that involves less shock on my lower legs, even if my footwork gets sloppy.

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Anyhow, that's all for the moment. Have fun!

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.