Practice Report, and a Discussion of Tempo, Stance, and Distance

Practice was a good, solid, fun time. One fencer who moved up north showed up again, which was really nice. He's good people.

After practice I did a plus-minus-plus exercise with Sorcha in the car on the way home. My points were:

• Plus: Successfully implemented a strategy that I have trouble against, and gained ideas from how other people dealt with it.
• Minus: I lost a bunch against a particular opponent who usually uses buckler, but couldn't tell quite why I lost. The minus is not the losing, the minus is the couldn't-figure-out-why.
• Plus: I had a realization about how I think a particular very-skilled fighter uses tempo and distance and successfully implemented it later in practice. I will explain it here.

I also was not patient enough against one very effective case fighter, but I suppose that practice is for trying shit out, rather than for fighting a conservative fight. So that's kind of a neutral.

Also, I need to not thug people as much. Usually, when I hit people hard, it's because I expect them to void backwards, so I throw the shot such that it will still touch them if they move backwards. Then, they move forwards. It usually gives me enough time to break with my hand, but especially if the shot is particularly whippy, it ends up being uncomfortable for my opponent. Against particular people who I fight at full-speed and at full extension, sets of fights tend to end when I land a shot that's too hard.

I'd like to figure out a better strategy for hitting people who are zigging backwards, without necessarily hitting them hard if they zag forwards. I'm not 100% sure how to do that, without giving up many opportunities to touch my opponent. Other people seem to manage to, but they might be giving up numerous opportunities. One idea is to throw more "structured", straight-on shots. Basically, throw better shots that are less disengage-y. That's not really my style, and would tend to favor a shorter blade. But it is a possibility. Those shots wouldn't whip hard, they would just have followthrough.

Against people who I out-range significantly, this tends not to be a problem, because I need to pull the shot earlier so that I'm not over-committed. This means I can throw at an angle that bends more easily.

Anyhow, on to tempo, distance, and stance.

*****

I had a realization about tempo! It's great. I think it's something I've sort-of understood in the past, but before I had a blog. I'll explain the principles first, then the specifics of how I implement the principles near the end of this section.

Theory

Basically, whenever someone "settles" into their stance, there's a tempo in which you can act. If you begin acting in that fourth-of-a-second as they are finishing settling their weight between their feet, you can generally catch people off-guard. This is how I have lost my hand in fights many, many times. I settled my weight without thinking about it, and gave my opponent a tempo.

The bit I didn't realize was that there's a counter-tempo available. So, if you take a half-step inside of lunge measure and begin to settle, there are two basic possibilities available. If your opponent isn't aware of the above principle of tempo, they will wait until you're settled and then begin fighting. If they are aware of that above principle, they will attempt to jump you in that fourth-of-a-second before you finish settling into your stance.

If you're aware of the second step in that process, you can abort your settling-into-position at that time, and then perform an action which will catch your opponent unawares. I only realized that this was a possibility after it was done to me time and time again. I noted my opponent settling into stance well within our respective lunge ranges, but that he was still acting before I thought to act. Then it clicked that this was what he was doing, and I was able to execute the same against him.

Though, it did result in a few nasty train wrecks, because once or twice I tried to just clear his sword and lunge. And we both did that, and were better at attacking than at defending. OH WELL.

Application

So, in terms of implementation - when I settle into stance, there's a very specific "rising" and then "falling into place" step. During the "rising" step, I place my feet in the correct location. Then, during the "falling into place" step, I allocate my weight appropriately for whatever stance I'm doing. usually 70%-back, 30%-forward, because I like my Giganti stance.

(Note that by "rising" step and "falling" step, I mean "step" as in "part of the process", rather than "step" as in "taking a step forwards".)

This is how most people get into a stance. It's a vaguely universal way that human beings move. Some people place their back foot, allocate all their weight to it, and then place their front foot and shift some of their weight to their front foot, but that's the same thing - at that point the "falling into place" step occurs after they set down their front foot, while they're shifting their weight from their back to their front.

It takes about a second for all of this to occur. So, using my bro-science definition of "tempo" as "about a fifth of a second", there are about two tempi during the "rising" step, and two tempi during the "falling" step. Yes, I realize that if we're being super-strict, that leaves a fifth of a second un-allocated, but this is bro-science, and not exact. And not completely accurate, but the way my definition of "tempo" has changed is not a discussion I want to have here.

Basically, there are about two tempi during the "falling" step - you want to act such that your lunge will end about as they finish settling. So, in the second available tempo during the "falling" step.

Obviously, this is only applicable if you have convinced your opponent to settle into stance while inside of your lunge range. There are many ways to do this.

• You can deceive your opponent as to your true lunge range in a variety of ways, which is a whole discussion in and of itself. The easiest way is to gather your back foot to your front foot ahead of time, which extends your lunge.
• You can select a location to set up in your list area which doesn't *allow* them to be out of your lunge range.
• You can select a lunge-target which is closer than their body, such as their hand or a cut into their blade to unsettle them.
• You can take a tiny single-tempo step forward during the "rising" step in the process of your opponent settling into guard. This is probably the best, most universally-applicable choice.

So, this is all great. This will allow you to take advantage of tempo in exciting ways. As well, if your opponent recognizes that they are inside of your measure during any step in the process of settling into guard, it will force them to move back and begin the process of settling into guard all over again.

It's great. I love it.

But all of that is just the basic level. There's more yet!

Next Level, Bro!

If you are aware of the "rising" and "falling" parts of settling into stance, you can take advantage of this yourself. Indeed, you can take advantage of your opponent's knowledge of tempo and turn "getting into stance too close in measure" into an advantage, rather than a disadvantage.

If you are aware that your opponent could act before you settle into stance, you can abort that "settling into stance" right before the second half of the "falling" step, to perform an action. This allows you to settle into your stance just a bit closer than is normally preferred - inside of your opponent's extended lunge measure. If you do this, and then abort your "settling into stance" action, you don't even need deceive your opponent into being too close! You can take an action that seems like a bad choice, but make it a good choice by playing with your opponent's expectations of timing.

That is to say, by acting instead of finishing settling into stance, either:

• Your opponent is waiting to fight until you finish settling into stance, in which case you stab them.
• Your opponent is planning to attack during the last bit of time as you "fall into stance", in which case you both attack at the same time.
• Hope you covered your openings, bro!

This is great. This is wonderful. It lets you play with tempo in a way that will feel like you're cheating time. You can even do this when you are performing advancing steps, by aborting the step at the last minute to turn it into a lunge.

But that's not all!

The Levels Don't Stop Coming, Bro!

So, let's consider the above actions.

• Attack in your the tempo of your opponent settling into stance.
• Attack out of the tempo of you settling into stance.

Both of these are actions in the tempo of "settling into" stance, whether yours or your opponents. As I said above, there are two tempi in the "falling" step - what if you aborted getting-into-stance during the first of these "falling" tempi?

This would allow you to attack before your opponent, even if they understand tempo well enough to attack both into and out of settling into stance. Things do get a bit weird here. If you are attacking into your opponent settling into stance, they usually are still looking "outside" of their body, rather than "inside". There are two things which make attacking into someone settling their weight effective.

• Settling your weight requires you to concentrate on a sensation, rather than something visual, so for a brief moment you are not paying full attention to what you're seeing.
• Settling your weight means you can't move immediately.

So, if you attack during the first part of the "settling into" step, your opponent will be in a better position to defend themselves. But, if your opponent is playing tempo games, such as trying to settle into stance within your measure in order to deceive you, it is an effective strategy.

Attacking out of the first part of yourself setting into a stance has similar disadvantages. Normally, watching the first half of someone "settling into" stance creates the expectation that the second half of "settling into" stance will happen. If you abort the first part, which would have set that expectation, then your opponent doesn't have an expectation of what is going to happen. This means you don't gain the advantages of attacking out of the latter half of settling into stance, and you might as well have just let yourself settle completely into a good, structured stance.

I Lied. That's All the Levels.

So, we have generated for ourselves a modified rock-paper-scissors. Let's flowchart it.

I decided to go backwards, from the last tempo to the first tempo, because if I did it in order that would imply that you can make choices based on what your opponent is doing here. The timing here is such that you can't react fast enough based on what your opponent is doing. You can make the choice of when to act, but your opponent's choice of when to act is entirely separate, due to how fast this set of things happens. This is what I mean by tempo - it takes a full tempo for you to process and react to what your opponent is doing, and while that's happening your opponent is already processing and reacting to what you just did. BROSCIENCE.

As yet another aside, this is why I disagree with people who put too much weight in slow-fencing. There are legitimately things which work at full-speed, which don't work at slower speeds due to human reaction time. Which I generally equate to tempo, which isn't exactly correct, but it's correct enough for my purposes.

• If you're settling into stance...
• And you decide to finish settling into stance...
• And your opponent lets you finish...
• You end neutral, match continues.
• And your opponent attacks in the second tempo of your settling...
• Your opponent has an advantage to their attack, probably stabbing your hand or something.
• And your opponent attacks in the first tempo of your settling...
• You can probably defend yourself just fine, meaning your opponent is at a disadvantage.
• And you decide to attack out of the second tempo of your settling...
• And your opponent was going to let you finish...
• You have an advantage to your attack, and probably stab their hand.
• And your opponent attacks in the second tempo of your settling...
• A double-kill is likely, unless someone successfully parries. Good game everyone. Feel shame.
• And your opponent attacks in the first tempo of your settling...
• Your opponent has an advantage by attacking before you.
• And you decide to preemptively attack out of the first tempo of your settling...
• And your opponent was going to let you finish...
• Your opponent has the advantage, because this gave them enough time to see your attack and respond.
• And your opponent was going to attack in the second tempo of your settling...
• You have the advantage, because you're attacking before them, but close enough to when they're attacking that they can't abort.
• And your opponent was going to attack in the first tempo of your settling...
• Something something, double-kill, shame.
• If they're settling into stance...
• And they decide to finish settling into stance...
• And you let them finish...
• Neutral
• And you attack them in the second tempo of their settling...
• Advantage to you.
• And you attack them in the first tempo of their settling...
• Advantage to them.
• And they decide to act out of the second tempo of their settling...
• And you were going to let them finish...
• Advantage to them.
• And you attack them at the same time...
• Double-kill is likely.
• And you act in the first tempo of their settling...
• Advantage to you.
• And they decide to act out of the first tempo of their settling...
• And you were going to let them finish...
• Advantage to you.
• And you were going to attack them in the second tempo...
• Advantage to them.
• And you attacked at the same time...
• Double-kill is likely.

I feel like this would have made a better set of graphs than bulleted list. Oh well.

So, in all of the above "double-kill is likely" bits, that doesn't mean not to do it - it means to only do it if you feel super safe. This usually means you have their sword covered with your dagger or some such. As with all things, "advantage" doesn't necessarily mean "win" - it means "advantage".

There are some parts of the above list that I'm somewhat unsure of. I'll work on mapping those out more thoroughly over time.

So, it's a weighted rock-paper-scissors. The "meta-game" tends to allow people to finish because double-kills are bad, which means that acting in the second tempo is the best action in most circumstances. But since double-kills are bad, that means the true best action is to just get out of damn measure and have both people settle into their stance.

I'm super frustrated, because this seemed like something that was going to be a cool thing, but it really just ends up being a frustratingly dead-ended rock-paper-scissors in which two draw conditions lend themselves to double-kills. Sigh.

Anyhow. That's all for now.

Fabris Principle 1

So, for future-Lupold, I'm typing up the flowchart that is Fabris Rule 1 for Single Rapier. Fabris digresses a bunch, so I'm rearranging it into a more condensed version, which can be referenced from far measure to close measure.

Starting from the position to the left.

This flowchart should be read considering things at the same level to be alternative options, and things in sub-levels to be steps which follow the parent node.

• Approach your opponent with your sword slightly above theirs. As you approach, you should make sure your hilt eventually reaches the same place on their sword that your tip initially was. So, if they are off-line low, you might need to lower your hilt as you approach.
• As you approach Large Measure...
• If your opponent tries to push your sword off-line without moving...
• Due to your stance's structure, he will be unable to push you away without bringing his tip far off-line. He will not be able to bring it on-line again before you reach his body.
• I guess we continue into close measure here? But we have exited the flowchart at this point.
• NOTE: It seems like this branch ends NEUTRAL, with you NOT STABBING your opponent, but NOT BEING STABBED either.
• If your opponent tries to push your sword off-line while moving backwards...
• Perform a disengage and re-establish your line, continuing forward. Disengage should happen from the wrist.
• Continue moving into Close Measure.
• If your opponent changes stance while moving backwards...
• Follow their sword with yours, continuing in, which will progress you into a closer measure.
• Exit measure, re-establish correct stance, and start from the top of the flowchart.
• As you pass through the weird middle zone between close and far measures...
• Your opponent tries to push your sword off-line...
• Disengage to re-establish the line.
• Continue moving into Close Measure
• Your opponent tries to disengage to gain the line...
• Counter-disengage before your opponent can touch your sword.
• Continue moving into Close Measure.
• If your opponent changes stance while moving backwards...
• Follow their sword with yours, continuing in, which will progress you into a closer measure.
• Exit measure, re-establish correct stance, and start from the top of the flowchart.
• As you approach Close Measure...
• If you are on the Inside Line...
• If your opponent tries to push your sword off-line...
• Roll your hand into seconda and lower your body. Stab your opponent.
• NOTE: It seems like this should be quarta at first glance. But we're not directly opposing the opponent's motion - we're flowing around it.
• If you are on the Outside Line...
• If your opponent tries to push your sword off-line...
• Disengage to the inside line, roll your hand into seconda and lower your body. Stab your opponent.
• NOTE: Here, you are performing a larger yield-around, with more of a lean with your body, it seems. Your body should end up in the outside line, but your sword should be on the inside line.
• If your opponent changes stance while moving backwards...
• Follow their sword with yours, continuing in, which will progress you into a closer measure.
• Exit measure, re-establish correct stance, and start from the top of the flowchart.

Re-Hash

Today will consist of a re-hash of things which I already know.

I want to review my Fabris. This involves going through this post. In terms of Principle 1, I think that Fabris wants you to always go toward the outside line. That's the only way it makes sense, without further context. I also want to apply Principles 3, 5, and 6, which should be relatively straightforward and should work together relatively nicely.

I want to maintain a the idea of "keeping someone out of your presence" in terms of an ellipse. That is to say, everything is fine, as long as you keep their ability-to-stab outside of the ellipse which is the silhouette of your head-and-torso.

Lastly, I have a weird combination-idea that I want to try. It occurs to me that there are two "types" of guards, based on the curvature of your arm. There are "straight" guards and there are "curved" guards. in "curved" guards, your arm-sword-aggregate leaves, then crosses back over the shortest line from your shoulder to your opponent. In "straight" guards, your arm either is along this line, or strays from the line but doesn't re-cross it.

An important note is that an opponent's guard can change between "curved" and "straight" based solely on your movement, without your opponent moving their arm at all.

It seems, at a glance, like for "straight" guards, you generally want to step "away" from their tip, trying to strike them as in Destreza when you thrust to the flank while stepping around, without taking a strong atajo. These are the things I have called "weak" attacks in the past.

For "curved" guards, it seems like one would want to "bar" their tip such that your sword prevents their sword from regaining the shortest-line-from-shoulder-to-you. So you put your sword, perhaps even completely horizontally, between their tip and that shortest-line. Then, you do something like Fabris Principle 6 and maintain that defense, rotating your body to allow your tip to become at liberty and attack them.

It's possible that the stuff from this post would be more relevant, in this regard, but I fear their ability to perform a wide disengage around my sword.

Of course, in the case where your movement changes what "relative curvature" of guard they have, you would need to switch tactics in the middle.

It's a work in progress.

And it makes sense to me.

Let's see if it helps me sword better with my 37" rapier.

Post-Practice Post

So, just to follow up on a few things.

New person at practice was vexingly good from the get-go. Her instincts are good, so if she stays around, the thing to do will be to make sure to accentuate her correct instincts, rather than try to replace them completely.

The "deep, strong atajo" thing seemed like it... sort of worked? I think I need to work on my stepping patterns, there. It also feels like something wrong there. Like, when I push down with a strong atajo, my opponents tend to want to keep disengaging under, even though they totally don't have a line there. So when I attempt to perform a weak attack above their hilt afterwards, I stop blocking their blade. It doesn't get me stabbed, because tempo, but it still feels awkward.

Also, the switch from a "deep, strong atajo" to a thrust feels super awkward.

Also, "flowing" from position to position seemed to work better than committing to quick motions. It was interesting.

I had more words, but they're gone now. OH WELL.

Quick Pre-Practice Post

I haven't written in my swordblog in over two weeks. SADNESS!

This post is gonna jump around a bit, because I've been having several different swordthoughts and haven't had as much time to try them out as usual.

*****

So, the current thing I'm working is related to the previous post. Last post, I talked about high guards which defend the high line, and low guards which defend the low line. Then, I went into excruciating detail about why it is important to flip back and forth between high and low guards. The summary is that doing this "automatically catches" your opponent's attempts to disengage. This is a vast over-simplification, but the complex version is in the damn post.

So, over the past few weeks, I've been working on something that I wanted to be the "next step" in that process. You see, when you have less range, and you're fighting against someone with more range, you generally need to close 3 or 4 steps, rather than one step of covering and a second step of attack. As such, I tried to develop a third type of atajo.

First, we have the "weak" atajos, in which we put our tip near their hilt. These are "near the tip of our blade".

Then, we have the "strong" atajos, in which we cross the middle of our blade over the middle of their blade. These are "near the middle of our blade".

I then wanted to create something that was "near the tip of our opponent's blade", as a third sort of atajo. Sadly, every attempt I have made at this has failed miserably. It's possible that I am just not doing it correctly, but it seems mostly like covering your opponent's tip just isn't a viable tactic.

In theory, you would need to have a wider "angle" - weak atajos have almost no angle, and strong atajos have a 45º angle, so following that progression means that we would have something like a 90º angle with our opponent's sword, to cover more space.

When I was trying this out last Monday, I was not doing the 90º angle, so perhaps that is wrong.

In terms of historical sources, Romagnan's Rada treatise talks about "virtual" atajos, in which you place an atajo on a sword which is far away from you. It seems like this might be similar to the concept of "covering their tip", just because of how far away you are. But I'm unsure.

Oh well. Further work is required.

*****

Another possible solution here would be to just go for the strong atajo, then switch to a weak atajo and then the opposing weak atajo. Switching between strong atajos takes far too long, but switching between weak atajos is a tiny action. This worked pretty well against Thomas's longsword, in as much as it allowed me to take that third step while closing lines, but I'm not sure how it would work against other opponents.

This solution vexes me because it forces me into a weak atajo. If someone is using case, I need to be able to switch between strong atajos in order to take advantage of the relatively narrow opportunities that they allow me.

*****

A possible solution to the "switching strong atajos takes too long" problem is a possible alternate way to do strong atajos. In the traditional Narrowing/Line in Cross, we block the high line with Line in Cross and the low line with Narrowing. In theory, if we lower or raise our sword more, we could block the low line with Line in Cross, or the high line with Narrowing.

The idea behind this is the "sword-punch" thing that Sorcha used to do far more often. Basically, she applies Line in Cross while stepping in a circle, then pushes hard downwards with her hilt in order to switch from blocking the high line to blocking the low line. This, exacerbated by the truly brutal quillons that her old sword has, prevented the disengage that would normally be the correct response to the high-line-defending Line in Cross that she, in her Italian-esque way, performed.

The drawback to this is that you are no longer actually protecting the high line - by the principles of opposition, your opponent should be able to push through your sword to get at your high line, if they anticipate your action. However, it does still provide some small protection for the high line if your opponent is not trained in the art of Opposition, and it also creates the illusion that you are, in fact, protected.

Similarly, you could take Narrowing and "punch upwards" with it to cover your high line.

The "punch downwards" is something I reflexively do already as part of my Line in Cross, if I feel my opponent gaining a tempo-based advantage. I lean over and punch downwards to catch their disengage. If I integrated a switch from that atajo to a weak atajo, I could possibly continue forwards?

*****

Hmm hmm hmm. Vexing questions.

Next time, I'll probably try to write about "Directions of Stepping And The Attacks You Should Apply While Stepping In Them". Until then, fence well!

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.