Principles of Attacking and Excruciatingly-in-Depth Tempo

Sorcha's home with recently-removed wisdom teeth, I'm stressed about the election, and I wasn't able to go to fencing practice yesterday. So what do I do? I write up a blog post.

Today's blog post is about attacking. An ideal attack has two properties:

• Presents a legitimate threat to your opponent.
• Creates a strong defense against your opponent.

Those are both very squishy definitions, though. What do we mean by "legitimate threat"? What do we mean by "strong defense"? How do we prioritize these things? All very difficult questions to answer. I would propose the following modifications to those definitions, to make them more grounded and specific:

• Presents a legitimate threat to your opponent.
• Will stab your opponent if they don't act within one tempo.
• Creates a strong defense against your opponent.
• Creates a defense such that attacking you is a parryable action.

I concentrate on "one tempo" as the minimum measurement of action and reaction. This, as I have detailed before, is because human reaction speed is about 200 milliseconds at best. This minimum measurement of time gives us boundaries to what can and cannot be done. If one person is fencing at 1/4 speed and the other person is fencing at full-speed, there are all kinds of things that the full-speed person can do safely. However, when both people are fencing at full speed, this forces us to recognize that there is only so fast that each player in this game can act and react, due to the speed of electrical impulses in nerves.

Offensive Principles

So, let's tackle these definitions individually. Again, here's the first:

• Will stab your opponent if they don't act within one tempo.

That is simple enough. Leaning thrusts are one-tempo actions. But we can extrapolate that out a bit. If our opponent is badly positioned, it isn't a stretch to imagine that they wouldn't be able to bring their blade to bear in time. Let's, in a completely arbitrary and anecdotally-supported way, call that a 1.5-tempi action. So, the above statement expands into the following:

• Either
• You have a clear leaning-thrust you can perform, without being immediately blocked.
• You can continue blocking your opponent's sword into a disadvantageous position while you lunge.
• You can push your opponent's sword into a disadvantageous position while you lunge.

This still leaves a bit of vagueness - what is a "disadvantageous position", for example? To me, tt's a position where they can't get their sword to a place where they can defend themselves from your attack in 1.5 tempi. This is different for different attacks - for example, attacking the arm is much faster than attacking the flank, which is a bit faster than attacking the face.

Defensive Principles and Excruciatingly-in-Depth Tempo

So, with that vagueness as out-of-the-way as we're going to get it, let's continue on:

• Creates a defense such that attacking you is a parryable action.

I'm having some trouble sorting out my sources (this one being the closest I can find to what I wanted), but the processing time for an action relying on visual stimuli is as follows:

• Eye sees the image, transmits it to brain (20-40 milliseconds)
• Brain processes the image, decides on an action (50-80 milliseconds)
• Nerves convey impulse to arm, arm moves (80 milliseconds)
• This last one was pulled from my memory. Not sure if it's correct. If you find actually-correct numbers, please let me know.

This yields about 200 milliseconds plus some amount of actual movement time for a full reaction, as above. But what this means is that by the time your brain has finished processing what has happened, your opponent has moved from that point, whether they are continuing their current action or starting a new action. Looking above, the time it takes to process data is about 100 milliseconds - half a tempo.

So, this means that all of our defensive actions must assume that our opponent has half a tempo more of action than they have performed yet. This means that all of our parries and protective actions must be, to a certain degree, proactive.

It takes a certain amount of time for a blade to accelerate from nothing to moving. I would wager it is about 100 milliseconds. (I don't have real data on this bit, so I could easily be wrong here.) 

Having your opponent's blade blocked to a place where they cannot thrust straight-in means that they cannot be that half-tempo through your blade, because it's there and blocking them. However, this means that you must assume that they are already a half-tempo through performing the disengage they need to hit you in your openings.

Henceforth, I will be measuring things in terms of tempo. 1T is one tempo, which is 200 milliseconds. 0.5T is half a tempo, which is 100ms.

Let's pretend, for the moment, that you have them blocked onto your inside line. Their only options are to attack from the high inside line and low inside line, from how your stance is structured. The options you must consider collapse into the following, if you wish to defend against all attacks:

1. Opponent attacks into the high inside line
• 0T: They cannot thrust because your sword is in the way.
• 0.5T: Your sword moves and they happen to have already chosen that moment to thrust. Their thrust proceeds.
• 1T: Their thrust is moving, your sword is moving.
• 1.5T: Their thrust strikes home.
• 2T: If you attempted to parry as soon as you saw them move, your parry would complete here.
2. Opponent attacks into the low inside line.
• 0T: They begin thrusting.
• 0.5T: Your sword begins to move. They are still thrusting.
• 1T: Their thrust strikes home.
• 1.5T: If you were not attacking and you attempted to parry as soon as your brain understood that they were moving at 0.5T, your parry would complete here.

So, the ideal attack would defend against the low line attack primarily, while still creating enough of an obstruction on the high line that your opponent must perform at least 0.5T of disengage.

We can collapse our definition of what a well-defended attack is further:

• If your opponent attacks you through a place that your stance currently defends and will after you attack, their attack will fail, then your attack is well-defended.
• If your opponent attacks you through a place that your stance currently does not defend but will after you attack, it will take them at least 1T to strike you, then your attack is well-defended.
• If your opponent attacks you through a place that your stance currently defends but will not after you attack, it will take them at least 1.5T to strike you, then your attack is well-defended.
• If your opponent attacks you through a place that your stance currently does not defend and will not after you attack, it will take them at least 2T to strike you, then your attack is well-defended.

There are two more items on that chart than in the above timing chart. The very first item should be obvious - if you attack in a way that defends you, then you should remain defended. The last item is a bit more complex - the math-esque thinking there is as follows:

• Location that your stance does not defend and will not after you attack.
• 0T: They begin thrusting.
• 0.5T: Your sword begins moving. You realize that they are thrusting. 
• 1T: Their thrust lands. The signal from your brain to your arm that it should halt its attack and defend you reaches your arm.
• 1.5T: Your arm succeeds at stopping your attack and begins to defend.
• 2T: Your parry finishes enough that, had it been 1T faster, you would not be stabbed.

As such, these four principles should be enough to cover all cases, when thinking of swords in terms of lines and openings.

In theory, any system that adheres to these principles will be a Good and Correct system. The rest of this post goes in-depth about how I, personally, implement these principles in my own fencing. Some amount of this is conjecture, because I have not fenced enough recently.

A Brief Digression

The reason I collapse this into high/low is because the Spanish tradition has four lines:

• High Inside
• Low Inside
• High Outside
• Low Outside

According to the Spanish tradition (per Romagnan's Rada manual), you keep people's swords to either the left or right of you - also called the "left defensive plane" and "right defensive plane". These are strongly defensive positions. The quickest openings that you can be attacked on are openings in which your opponent switches from high to low - as such, you only have to consider the transition from high line to low line when defending yourself, so long as your stance remains Right and Proper.

As such, when attacking, switching from the high line to the low line is the ideal action. This is expressed in Viedma's "High General" and "Low General". The "Low General" is a switch from a strong, high-line parry (Line in Cross) to a weak, low-line parry (Weak Under Strong). Similarly, the "High General" is a switch from a strong, low-line parry (Narrowing) to a weak, high-line parry (Weak Over Strong). In my own fencing, I generalize that to a principle that switching from high-line to low-line is inherently the safest way to attack.

So, the Spanish tradition (as I understand it) is structured to create one "defended" line in exchange for creating exactly one "open" line, when in-stance. The "open lines" of Italian traditions are a bit more abstract - there's "inside" and "outside", but aside from techniques that clearly make use of high and low lines, the Italian masters don't really consider things like that. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Capoferro and Giganti don't really consider the low line at all, preferring to keep the idea of "opening" more abstract and "here's a set of examples, now go to town". While there is certainly clear value in this, it doesn't jibe with the way I personally work.

Conclusion

In summary, we have the following principles:

• Presents a legitimate threat to your opponent.
• Will stab your opponent if they don't act within one tempo.
• You have a clear 1T attack such as leaning-thrust you can perform, without being immediately blocked.
• You can continue blocking your opponent's sword into a disadvantageous position while you perform a 1.5T attack such as a lunge.
• You can push your opponent's sword into a disadvantageous position while you perform a 1.5T attack such as a lunge.
• Creates a strong defense against your opponent.
• Creates a defense such that attacking you is a parryable action, meaning that your attack is well-defended. The circumstances which produce well-defended attacks are as follows:
• If your opponent attacks you through a place that your stance currently defends and will after you attack, their attack will fail.
• If your opponent attacks you through a place that your stance currently does not defend but will after you attack, it will take them at least 1T to strike you.
• If your opponent attacks you through a place that your stance currently defends but will not after you attack, it will take them at least 1.5T to strike you.
• If your opponent attacks you through a place that your stance currently does not defend and will not after you attack, it will take them at least 2T to strike you.

If we fight in a way that abides by these principles, attacking will not present an opening. So, doing these things allows us to be As Safe As Possible™. A future, less exciting blog post will cover stances and how to remain safe in-stance. I might have already blogged about this, but my ideas on the subject have most likely changed since last I wrote on it, so it bears repeating. Next post will most likely be an in-detail look at how I implement these principles in my personal mix of Italian and Spanish fencing.

(Edited for comprehension on 2018-03-26)

The Pokétron and the Overtron

I am pleased with myself. Before you continue - this post has very little if anything to do with fencing.

Last night, I re-implemented a tool for taking an arbitrary "team" and giving advice about the best choices to minimize the weaknesses of the team. This is because I have been playing a lot of Overwatch. One problem in Overwatch is that sometimes, the character you select is just bad against the other team's composition. However - it's hard to tell the difference between performing badly and being counter-picked. So, we solve the problem with technology.

Originally, the tool was created for fighting the Pokémons online. I naively scraped "weak against" data from Smogon University, and then used that data to create teams for whom there were no un-compensated-for weaknesses.

An example. So, I have added Swampert to my team. Swampert is weak to Celebi and Mamoswine. Celebi is weak to Skarmory and Venusaur, while Mamoswine is weak to Skarmory and Bronzong. We're going to pretend that there are no other weaknesses, for the moment.

So, the program would advise that I use Skarmory, since Skarmory counters both and doesn't add any new weaknesses. Yay!

If the options listed did add weaknesses, then I would check to see if they were weak to anyone currently on the team. If they were, that would be fine. If they weren't, then they would be a less-good option according to the program.

In reality, this relies on having a good, simple data-set. It's a very useful program for Pokémon, for instance, because the data-set is so large and there is a website sitting there with ready, scrapeable data. It's all simple sets though, and didn't take *that* long to implement.

The reason I've done this recently, is because Overwatch has a similar extended-rock-paper-scissors element to it. So, I've implemented the Overtron. What I do is I input my team, then it tells me what the best choices are, in ascending order of awesomeness.

There's some weirdness to the data. In the Pokétron, there are a few Pokémon who, according to Smogon University's dataset, are so dominating of the meta-game that they were almost always the best choice. Skarmory and Scizor were the two particular ones, with Skarmory frequently being between 400% better than the next-best option, and then the next several options being only about 20% different from each other.

It's hard to tell if this is because the data is generated by humans, or if Skarmory was actually that dominating of the meta-game.

Similarly, the data-set I'm using for Overwatch friggin' loves Reaper and Winston. Loves 'em. The brief testing I've undertaken has allowed me to see that yes, they are good options very much of the time. But it's still hilarious to me how this algorithm has such dominant "favorites". It's probably a sign that I either need to modify the algorithm, or I need to edit the data-set.

Part of me believes that this sort of set manipulation could be used to determine effective maneuvers. Because fencing does have a subtle sort of rock-paper-scissors to it, in various maneuvers. Sadly, the data-set is probably too squishy for me to ever create the Fencingtron.

King's and Queen's Rapier Champions, Part Two

The day-of.

There are a lot of directions I could go with this.

I could go into a general talk about how mental health and "tournament game" are inseparable. I could talk about all of the other experiences that led to that day. Instead, I'm just going to leave it alone and talk about the day itself, because quite frankly, that previous post was too emotionally exhausting for me to write anything more serious.

*****

The day-of, I got up early and had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, as is traditional. I had two Vitamin Water Energy drinks, as well as a Diet Coke, a bottle of water, and some of my favored powdered coffee to drink. Basically, I've reached a point where all of the liquids I drink are caffeinated, for better or for worse.

Over the past few days, an idea had been brewing in my head. In school, I was a good test-taker. This doesn't mean that my anxiety is good or bad - it just means that there is a particular type of anxiety that makes me excel. So, I tried to tap into that feeling. I had several mantras throughout the day.

• "Like a test you know the answers to."
• As stated above, this is designed to invoke the feeling I have about standardized testing - that I'm good at it, and that even if I don't know the answers, I can usually use meta-information in the test to answer them. It is designed to bring about that anxious-but-ready feeling.
• "Just another fight."
• The implication here is that it isn't anything special, so I don't need to feel anything about it, positive or negative, because any feelings can lead to mistakes.
• "Nothing before, nothing after."
• Nothing which has happened before matters in the fight. Not my previous passes with the people I fight, not how I have been performing in the day. None of it. As well, nothing that happens after the fight matters. What will happen, will happen. All that matters is the fight itself.
• My own secret mantra.
• This is a sequence of nonsense words that I have used over the years to quell my own personal anxiety. As a matter of half-believed superstition, I do not tell them to other people because I believe that they have special significance.
• Random compulsions.
• If something floated across my mind, I would just do it. I decided to give in to all of the "I should adjust that dagger slightly so it feels right" or "my gloves need to be on my mask in a particular way" compulsions, to free the energy that I normally spend suppressing them. As well, to get my body used to responding instantly to whatever my heart wants me to do, whatever my reactions say I should do, because that's where fencing comes from.

My strategy for the day was to create openings and exploit them when they were big enough. It's a general enough strategy to not get caught in the muck of the fight. But it's also a specific enough strategy that I could always fall back on it. I'll write about more specifics on how I had been thinking about it, some day.

I decided that I was going to wear my most comfortable clothes for fighting. This means my doublet, my older shirt, leather gloves, and only my OGR pin. No scarf, since that had hurt my arm at Rose Tournament. No favors, because I would be fighting everybody whose favors I wear. No belt, no nothing distracting.

I fought some passes against Malocchio. He was on fire. I was... okay. Partway through, I realized that my socks were drooping, so I switched them out for a tighter, newer pair. He was my only warm-up.

After that, I decided to get into my head-space. We were divided up into pools. After my fight with Caoilfhionn, I had to run and get my hat. I was not relaxed, but I wasn't tense either. I was sipping drinks through the fights. Every fight, I made the same salute and got into the same stance. With only a few exceptions, I maintained my rhythm. After every fight, I would put down my sword and dagger, take off my mask, put my gloves on top of my mask, take down my hood, put on my hat, adjust it so nobody could make eye contact with me, take a sip of water, check my heart-rate on my Fitbit, and wait.

The rounds were arranged in a way which is ideal for me. My first fights were against more hesitant fighters - this is good because I tend to fight better after my first fight or two. At the start I tend to be antsy and hesitant. I won my first pass with hand-shots, because I didn't want to commit.

My fights were always at the top of the round. This was good, because it made them predictable. As well, fights were called rather than having to negotiate and engage socially with who I was going to fight.

A couple of people did a nice thing and tanked social encounters when people tried to talk to me. That was kind of them.

My heartburn started kicking in, starting a bit after my first fight. That was a good thing. That gave me a "dumb" thing to concentrate on - it hurt. My only thoughts at the time were something like, "This hurts. I'm cold. I'm a bit hungry. I'm a bit thirsty." Historically, I do well when I am a bit uncomfortable and a bit hungry. When I'm not a bit uncomfortable, my brain has room to have thoughts. Thoughts are anathema. I did allow myself to shiver with the stress, and rearrange objects based on random floating compulsions, though.

The Fitbit was useful - I found that generally my best fights ended with my heart rate around 100 bpm. Any more and it was a sign that the fight had gotten me too nervous. Any less was a sign that I was flagging and needed to be slightly more anxious.

So, I fought and I fought and I fought. My pool had several people who I historically have a hard time against. My first near-loss was one in which my opponent called that they were late. The same thing happened a second time later. Eventually I got a double-kill against Robert Earlson and a straight-up loss against Remy, who was also on fire that day. I was purposefully not paying attention to anyone else's fights. As such, I was mildly surprised that I progressed out of my pool. The whole thing lasted for about 2 hours of fighting and waiting.

*****

Afterwards, I immediately dropped my game-face and started talking. I put a little cheese and bread in my face, I threw away the two empty Vitamin Waters, and waited. Eventually, the Sweet 16 were announced. I ran off, hit the restroom, and grabbed my Diet Coke and made myself some instant coffee, which I sipped throughout the Sweet 16.

*****

In the Sweet 16, I knew I needed to redouble my headspace-game. So, I dove head-first into the set of mantras I had. Where previously they were just there in case I needed them, starting in the Sweet 16 I invoked them repeatedly.

I still didn't watch anyone else fighting. In some far-off place, I hoped not to have to fight Remy or Malocchio, since they had both proven to me that they were on fire.

And so things went, with me fighting my best fight and not thinking too hard about who I was fighting. Things happened, good and bad, in the course of those fights, but I remained mostly dead to the world. As time went on, I started making more mouth-noises. "Woo" and things like that. Inside me, but still isolated from me, there was a rising joy of fighting. Of the wonderful, beautiful violence that was happening.

The part of me that was making choices was still isolated, but in the same way I was allowing my compulsions to happen without any interference, I let my joy go straight from my heart to my mouth, without even considering interposing my brain.

Some people tried to get in my head or under my skin. I saw it for what it truly was - they respected me as an opponent and didn't want to lose. Perhaps they were even scared of me. Their words didn't mean what their words said - they meant what they were feeling inside. So, I invoked my inner Will Deth and let it slide off of my heart.

My heart rate and energy levels flagged a bit before fighting Caine. I kept pacing and put a bit of bounce into my step. I re-doubled and re-tripled into my mantras, and managed to stay in the game. That was the hardest part of the mental game - nothing that Caine said or did, but maintaining intensity into and through that fight. Again, I had neither opinions nor judgement about whether or not I would win, or whether winning or losing had any value. It was just another fight, just like any other.

I briefly looked at Malocchio and Remy fighting, when they finally fought. I had no opinions about who I wanted to win - they both would be ferocious opponents.

*****

As much as this post and the previous post have been all about being ridiculously honest and forthright, I can't say too much about fighting Remy and Malocchio yet. They were both gracious, extremely skilled opponents. My fights with them gave me a new respect for the both of them, and I already respected the hell out of them both. But aside from this one anecdote... not yet.

*****

In my last set of fights against Remy, we fought and we fought.

I won a truly long pass.

He won a pass.

He won another.

I grabbed my dagger.

I won the first.

I think we might have double-killed?

He won the second.

At that point, I think I fell over and took off my mask, from the tension. At that moment, I thought I had lost to him, and was prepared to hug him and walk off of the field. I had a good run, but I was happy for Remy and unsurprised. He was fighting so very, very well that day.

Everybody was still staring at me.

I thought back about the results thus far. No, I hadn't lost yet. We were 1-1 in the second set of fights.

Oh damn.

So, I put back on my mask and kept fighting.

*****

And then there was a post-revel. I was a bit of a butt - there are one or two things which seemed hilarious and unrelated-to-the-tournament to me at the time, but in retrospect probably seemed ungracious of me. I can and will endeavor to be better in the future.

*****

Thank you for indulging me by reading this post. If anything, I know that more people than ever will be gunning for my head. And I know that at least two of them can take me down if I flinch even a little bit. But I welcome this challenge.

I welcome it, with joy in my heart.

King's and Queen's Rapier Champions, Part One

This year, I won K&Q Rapier Champs.

For those who don't know, this is The Tournament in the East. This year there were over ninety fencers, fighting to be Champion. It's a hell of a thing. I've never before made it out of my pool, but for the past three years, two of the top four were from my pool. The difference this year was that I was one of those two.

But let's not talk about this year yet. Let's talk about last year.

If you're not comfortable with Real-Talk posts, don't read this. It's sincere, and lays things out there in a way that I haven't really done for anyone other than Sorcha.

*****

Last year's K&Q was Rough for me, for complex reasons. You see, people like narratives. So, in the first few years after I moved East, there was a running narrative in my head, based on the order in which things went. Basically, my Don, Thomas of Effingham, would receive an award, then Sorcha would, then I would. Here's the order in which things went:

1. Thomas already had his Award of Arms.
2. Sorcha got her Award of Arms.
3. I got my Award of arms.
4. Thomas was inducted into the Order of the Silver Rapier.
5. Sorcha was inducted into the Order of the Silver Rapier, receiving Thomas's medallion.
6. I was inducted into the Order of the Silver Rapier, receiving Thomas's medallion via Sorcha.
7. Thomas was inducted into the Order of the Perseus.
8. Sorcha was inducted into the Order of the Perseus, receiving Thomas's medallion.
9. I was inducted into the Order of the Perseus, receiving Thomas's medallion via Sorcha.
10. Thomas became Queen's Champion.
11. Sorcha became Queen's Champion under Thyra, who she had fought for previously.
12. And then King's and Queen's Rapier happened.

Last year, Caoilfhionn was the Queen. I adore her. She is fantastic and amazing. I had fought for her on several occasions - while Thomas was her primary rapier fighter, I was her number-two. As well, Thomas would not be able to become Queen's Champion again, because that's not how these things work. I was convinced that if I made it out of my pool, I would get to be her Queen's Champion.

So, I walked into that tournament needing to get out of my pool. Hungry for it. Convinced that the narrative of the day, of my career as a fencer, was on my side.

That day, Thomas wasn't feeling like entering the tournament. I won't go into detail, but I'm pretty sure it was, at least in part, my impassioned plea to him that convinced him to fight that day.

So, we warmed up for the tournament. I warmed up against Wyatt and Edward, two people who I have trouble against, but who I was relatively convinced that I had one "trick" I could use, for each of them, to take at least one pass. At the time, I was much more of a "bag-of-tricks" fencer than I am now. So, thinking about how unlikely it is that in a tournament of 80 people, they would end up in my pool, I used my tricks in warm-ups.

Then the pools were announced. All three of them were in my pool. I lost to the three of them, and only them.

Edward elected not to progress, leaving Thomas and Wyatt as first and second place in our pool. Third place was a tie between myself and Jean-Michel, and I had beaten Jean in the pools. So, if I had not encouraged Thomas to fight, I would have progressed.

Ouch.

I wandered off, over the site.

It was a beautiful day.

I stared at the sea and I cried. It hurt. It hurt so bad. Because I was happy that my friend was doing well, but I couldn't escape the knowledge that, if I hadn't encouraged him at the last minute to fight that day, I would have progressed. I was convinced that I would have been Queen's Champion!

It hurt for a long time.

But my Don, my friend, was still fighting that day.

So, I put on my big-boy pants, and I supported the hell out of him. I supported him the best I could.

In the end, he made it to the finals against another of my friends. He lost to Master Donovan, partly because Donovan, for various reasons, wanted it more that day. I was happy for Thomas, though, because he had fought well and gotten so far. It was a good day for him.

At-the-time-Lord Llewellyn was selected as Queen's Champion. I consoled myself with the knowledge that he would be a better Queen's Champion than I would have been. I chastised myself and told myself that it wouldn't have been the non-question that I, in my hubris, thought it was, that he would have been a better choice than me, even if I had made it into the Sweet 16. Really, the man's the ideal Queen's champion, and all future champs will have a hard time filling the shoes he left.

It was a good day for Thomas. I still don't regret anything I did that day. I made all the right choices, and Thomas left that day feeling good. I was sincerely happy for him.

At the same time, I hurt, but I couldn't show it. Llewellyn probably remembers the gritted teeth through which I called him "Champ" over the first half of his time there. It was even worse because I knew that he was the better man for the job, so I couldn't complain in the slightest.

But still. I had wanted to be Caoilfhionn's champion, like my Don had been before me. I had wanted it so very, very badly.

*****

The reason I talk about this now is because, had things not happened in exactly this way, I would not be King's Champion today. Last year was an object lesson in letting go of regrets. A lesson in letting go of everything.

Walking into the tournament last Saturday, I knew that there was nothing that could happen that would be harder than last year. All of that pain and those conflicting emotions. The joy I felt for Thomas, Llewellyn, and Donovan. The agony I felt about how, if I had just been a worse person and not encouraged Thomas to fight, that could have been me. The shame I felt about even thinking that.

I didn't walk in on Saturday, thinking that it was "my year". I walked in with a clear mind, ready to fight my fight. I walked in, having let absolutely everything go. Having already been through the hardest tournament experience I can imagine.

*****

Here's a link to part two.

Oh hey, look! A practice report!

Practice yesterday, in contrast to Monday, was really good.

I worked on presence-of-mind, partially inspired by this paper. Basically - I tried to maintain presence in-the-moment and avoid planning ahead. This allowed me to take advantage of the present situation, instead of trying to derp my way through situations that didn't actually come to pass.

Being present in-the-moment was super useful. I wasn't completely without plans - for example I periodically considered how my opponent was most likely to respond. But I didn't consider beyond that. I guess the real point is that I tried to not get lost in visualizing what might happen. Instead, I tried to consider whether openings were big enough, or how to make them larger if they were not. When making plans, my plan only extended to the immediate goal of making my the openings in my opponent's guard larger, rather than the goal of stabbing them two or three steps down the line.

I still was able to react with several of my usual actions - in particular, dagger-parry with a thrust in prima is a thing which has come to occupy more and more of my oh-shit reactions.

*****

I've started leaning over very, very far when I thrust. Assuming that Fabris is correct, I'll take this to be a good thing.

******

I did more solidly against the lefty at practice than I did against right-handed people. I think this is because, in my Italianized Destreza, I haven't been transferring appropriately from Weak Under Strong to Line in Cross, and Weak Over Strong to Narrowing, against right-handed opponents. Against a lefty, switching from one to the other feels much more natural, because they maintain the line constraining the lefty to the inside or outside of my blade, while still allowing for an attack.

Against a righty, in order to go from a passing thrust in Weak Under Strong at their flank into an appropriately-defensive thrust with Line in Cross, I have to push my hand super far toward the center of the circle, in order to maintain the defensive 45º angle between our blades and also block off the angle of their attack.

If I don't appropriately switch from Weak Under Strong to Line in Cross against a righty, then they can just thrust over my hilt at my face after they parry my thrust to their inside line. Or, after they parry me to the low outside, and then cut over the tip of my blade and throw a thrust over my hilt. Or, after they parry me to the outside with their tip high, then just thrust straight in above my hilt.

But much of what I did was exploit my greater range. Exploit the hell out of it. So good.

*****

Maintaining presence of mind against Sorcha was hard. Fights against one's significant other can be hard and frustrating, to one or both parties. I found it hard to maintain presence of mind, especially since her way of maintaining presence of mind is to banter. We are diametrically opposed in every way, in how we fight. I kept having to forcefully pull my brain back to presence of mind, which was in-and-of-itself frustrating.

Normally, I can ignore banter by growing angry at the other person, in the context of the bout. However, I was trying not to get angry, because I knew that would result in Sorcha growing frustrated as well, and I didn't want that. It's a difficult problem. The answer might just be to not fight her very often.

*****

tl;dr:

• Maintain presence of mind by concentrating on using and creating openings.
• Friggin' transfer between atajos appropriately against right-handed people. Don't be lazy.
• Maintaining presence of mind against certain people is hard, in a not-necessarily-constructive way. Don't force yourself to fight them.

I think that's all I have for the moment. Have a nice day, I guess?

Yesterpractice

Practice yesterday was frustrating. I felt like I kind of phoned it in. I was thinking about what I was doing. In retrospect, I think that was the problem. I didn't make the choice between a murderpractice and a practicepractice, and ended up doing something weird and in-between. This means I didn't have the satisfaction of a murderpractice, but I also didn't have the learning of a practicepractice.

This weird hybrid practice got me thinking about what was different about the passes I lost or doubled in, versus the passes I won at Rose Tournament.

In the passes I won, I was not thinking. In the passes I lost, I thought and second-guessed what I needed to do. This led to me choosing the wrong thing several times, and then losing.

I think that the next level in my fencing will be brought about by increasing my decisiveness. Thinking is wrong. Action is the only thing that matters, even if that action is a conscious and specific choice to remain still. I need to act, and the thing I do will be correct. Indeed, it will be more correct by the fact that my opponent will not be prepared for it, since I'll act instantly.

I achieved a lack of thought several times yesterday, and that's when I was fighting well. This lack of thought needs to be a lack of the fore-thinking that I do frequently. It needs to be living in the moment, rather than thinking about what my opponent might do. It needs to be watching my opponent and existing in the progressing moment, rather than watching to make sure I do my actions correctly.

I will perform and act correctly. The only input I need to what my opponent is doing right now.

Strike Point, or How I Learned To Sword More Gooder

After a conversation last Thursday, I'm reordering this post very slightly. Here is the closing paragraph, at the beginning to show off what the hell I'm talking about.

Most people have an understanding of center of percussion, and that is important. If you want to perform cuts, you need to understand where the "sweet spot" is. However, it is a mistake to think that this is a static thing. By controlling rotation, you can improve your sword mechanics and effective strength by a large amount. This will allow you to be a more effective fencer, and will allow you to troubleshoot and improve your own techniques.

This post will teach you one method to understand this, after bringing you through the theoretical underpinnings of this method.

*****

This post is the culmination of a relatively long train of thought, starting with the time I came across this article, perhaps three years ago. This is also the culmination of what I was calling "New Blade Magic" about half a year ago.

That article talks about "Center of Percussion", or the best place to hit with a chop in order to maximize kinetic energy imparted on the target. Since I disagree with that article's definition of "Center of Percussion", I'm going to refer to it here as the strike point.

The strike point is the place on a weapon that you want to hit with in order to impart the most impact possible. Breaking it down - the velocity of a blade, when striking, is primarily rotation. In order to strike most effectively, we want to find the place on the blade that, when we hit with it, we convert all of the rotation into kinetic energy.

Examples of three different strikes, arranged in vertical sequence.

There are arrows. That should help?

What happens when we don't hit in that place? Well, if we hit too far forward, the blade starts rotating in the opposite direction. If we hit too far back, the blade attempts to continue rotating in that same direction! But if we hit in just the right place, it stops. You can verify this by experimentation at home, by hitting things with swords or sticks.

The location of this "correct point" is dictated by the point the weapon is rotating around, and the distribution of weight of the weapon.

For the rest of this discussion, a diagram is necessary.

Rapier was shamelessly traced from somewhere I can't find again on the internet.

There are enough swords on the internet that it could be literally anywhere.

So, this is an example of a rapier. If you read this blog, you should be well familiar with them. For the moment, we will consider the center of balance of this rapier to be at point F.

As an example - if the rapier is rotating around point B, then the strike point could be point I. If that were the case, then when the rapier rotates around point A, then the strike point could be point H, and if it rotated around point C then it could be point J. The reverse is also true - if the blade were rotating around point I, then the strike point would be point B.

So, for this first example, we would have pairings A-H, B-I, C-J, and center of balance F. This covers the parts of the rapier that your hand covers, in general. So, if you throw a cut solely from the wrist at point A, the strike point would be point G. If you throw from the middle of the hand at point B, you would want to strike with point I. And if you were throwing a cut from your fingers at point C, you would want to impact with point J.

But what if you want your strike point to be somewhere farther forward? You could do this by performing a "whipping" motion. Rotate the sword from your wrist and move your arm and hand in the opposite direction, so the whole sword rotates around the point paired with point K. In this case, the point would probably be D. For longer swords, it might be closer to the center of balance, like point E. In either case, you would be making a "whipping" motion with your hand, to imbue the tip of your blade with all of the force in your sword.

What if you want to strike with point G? In that case, you would need to determine where to rotate around. It would be a point to the left of A - you would actually be rotating your sword around a point which is not on the sword itself.

(Feel-free-to-ignore-this musings: The center of balance acts as a lens, distributing what amounts to an image of your hand onto the other side of the weapon. This image continues off into infinity - as you rotate the weapon around a point closer and closer to the center of balance, the strike point moves off into infinity. Similarly, as you rotate around a point closer and closer to infinity, the strike point asymptotically approaches the center of balance, until you're just moving perpendicular to the length of the blade.)

This understanding allows us to classify the blade into parts. The part of the blade to the left of H is the strong, the part between H and J is the middle, and the part to the right of J is the weak.

The properties of the three parts of the blade are as follows:

The Strong is easy to push with.
The Middle is easy to strike with.
The Weak is easy to move.

A particularly pommel-heavy blade might not have a weak part of the blade, only a middle and a strong. A more heavily tapered blade has a smaller middle part, the middle being taken up by having more weak and more strong. So, here are a few example blades:

• My 45" sword with distal taper
• Center of balance F
• Pairings A-G, B-H, C-J, E-K
• My 37" rebar-like destreza blade with almost no taper
• Center of balance E
• Pairings A-H, B-I, C-J, D-K
• Sorcha's pommel-heavy sword
• Center of balance D
• Pairings A-H, B-I/J, C-K
• No weak of the blade.

How do we determine these pairings? Well, we do a little thing called "The Wiggle Test", inspired by this paper and then terribly misused by me.

Pinch the sword at the point you want to determine the pairing of. Then, wiggle it back and forth, parallel to the ground. The sword will rotate around a place on the other side of the center of balance from the pinched point. This is the strike point when rotating around that point.

Note that you can do this for any point on the sword - you can pinch on the quillon block, on the handle, or even on the blade.

(As a brief aside - I believe that when gripping a sword with undue tightness, the strike point is different because your hand becomes part of the rigid system that is being moved by your wrist. I am not sure how to ascertain the strike point there, except by brute-force experimentation and general guesstimation.)

What does this knowledge gain us?

• When performing opposition against an opponent's blade, we want to push with the strike point, since that lets us convert the rotation from our wrist into force in the most effective way.
• This is necessary because the wrist is the weakest part of the sword-to-body system.
• This is essential in such techniques as:
• Pushing thrusts.
• Glisé.
• Ripping the opponent's blade off-line.
• False-edge parries as per Capo Ferro.
• Honestly, almost everything you do with a sword.
• When performing a draw or push cut, we can make sure that we keep the strike point against our opponent's body, so the sword doesn't bounce weirdly.
• When we want to move our tip as fast as possible, this tells us how to do it.

So, this method of determining the strike point allows you to refine your techniques more quickly than you might otherwise do so. Because if you understand where it is, and why it is there, then you can manipulate it and improve your sense of it.

*****

Most people have an understanding of center of percussion, and that is important. If you want to perform cuts, you need to understand where the "sweet spot" is. However, it is a mistake to think that this is a static thing. By controlling rotation, you can improve your sword mechanics and effective strength by a large amount. This will allow you to be a more effective fencer, and will allow you to troubleshoot and improve your own techniques.

Thanks for reading!